


WE THE FALLEN

by Golden_Moon_Huntress



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 26,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25688407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Moon_Huntress/pseuds/Golden_Moon_Huntress
Summary: Rhaella Targaryen did not give birth to one baby girl on Dragonstone. She gave birth to triplets: a boy and two girls who have walked and flown this world before.
Relationships: Aegon I Targaryen & Visenya Targaryen, Aegon I Targaryen & Visenya Targaryen & Rhaenys Targaryen, Rhaenys Targaryen & Aegon I Targaryen, Visenya Targaryen & Rhaenys Targaryen, Visenya Targaryen/ Khal Drogo
Comments: 26
Kudos: 89





	1. Born of the Forsaken Star

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire or A Game of Thrones.
> 
> I don't usually post notes like this with my stories, but I'm going to make an exception for this one. This is a cross-post from Fanfiction.net, and I know many readers there were frustrated and annoyed by the fact that I followed canon so much. If that is going to bother you, this is not the story for you. This was written as stress relief when the plot bunny bit hard and now I'm sharing it with you. I understand if you feel angered by the direction I took, but while critique on my writing is welcome, insults on where this goes are not. If you want to know the direction it takes, you can find the full work under the full title and username on Fanfiction.net.
> 
> And now, with that stupidly long note out of the way, this is an odd idea I really went for a while back. It covers up to the end of season one and does mostly use show canon, but there might be things slipped in from the books and wider worldbuilding.

They came into this world during a great thunderstorm as lightning cracked overhead and wind and rain whipped the walls, squalling and bloody and angry. On that day the seas seemed to rage a little more violently and those there said the stone of Dragonstone itself felt warmer to the touch.

Their mother, although weakened greatly by the long and difficult birth, was delighted by her newborn children. It seemed almost unfair to her that they should be born now, in such a time of strife and danger. She would live to see them only thrice and name them thusly: the first, a girl, Daenara; the second, a boy, Jaemar; and the third, a second girl, Saeherys. They were small babes, which was perhaps to be expected with a set of triplets, but seemed healthy enough, with strong lungs and hearts. All three had skin as pale as the moon, soft silver-gold baby hair and pale blue eyes.

The wet nurses that looked into those eyes said they were far too intelligent, too old, too knowing.

They said the babes were old souls.

Behind closed doors, they talked of Daenara’s fascination with the knights’ swords and how she would reach for them given any opportunity; of Jaemar’s unusual stillness; of Saeherys’s obsession with any and all dragon carvings in the fortress, which she could recognise even at her young age and would squeal and gesture at.

By the time the Baratheon men arrived at Dragonstone and the babes had long since been smuggled away along with their older brother Viserys, those that remained there were quite happy to tell them how Daenara always appeared angry, how Jaemar looked at things as though trying to know their worth, how Saeherys gazed straight through people. They spoke of what quiet babes they were, how they never cried or screamed, though they would occasionally growl and scratch and even bite at each other or those near.

Like animals, some said, like dragons whispered others.

Above all though, they spoke of how the babes liked to watch the world around them with those knowing eyes.

They were demons, they said, monsters born of a sinful incestual marriage, the price the Targaryens had to pay for their crimes against the gods, but maybe they were just saying what they thought the new King would want to hear in order to keep their heads on their shoulders.

Far off in Braavos, three babes slumbered peacefully and dreamt of fire and blood and dragons.


	2. i: We Are The Dead

As all babes do, they grew.

They had been small babes at birth, delicate looking, but they put on weight quickly. Their eyes, pale blue at birth, darkened to a deep royal purple, and their soft baby hair grew longer, tumbling about their faces in gentle waves. As they grew older their habits of growling and scratching and biting faded somewhat, though it never quite fully went and sometimes it felt like there was something just slightly wrong with these bodies, like they didn’t fit them right. They felt the wrong shape, too fragile, like ill-fitting clothes. At night they dreamt of towering over their enemies with sharpened teeth and long talons and tasted acrid smoke in their mouths.

Memories came back in bits and pieces, fuzzy and unclear, their minds not quite able to understand in these young bodies, but they always had a deep-set knowledge of who they were, of what they were, and of what they had once been.

Those that tended them, the wet nurses and nannies, said they had never known babes quite like them.

At night they dreamed of fire and flying, of blood and flames and a sky that stretched out for eternity. They dreamt of war, of what once was, and of what could be again.

Many of the household staff refused to go near them. They said they were unnatural, these children, that they knew too much. Their eyes knew too much.

Some of them said the three looked at them like they were prey.

Daenara's first word was 'Aegon.'

Jaemar's first word was 'Rhaenys.'

Saeherys's first world was 'Meraxes.'

They were ten months old.

While they were still too small to hold a conversation, their vocal cords and coordination not yet developed enough, each knew for certain the others were there with them now and could draw comfort from their presence and the knowledge they were not alone in this strange new world.

Even if they could not talk to communicate, they could listen, and they could learn. So listen they did, trying to make sense of the situation they found themselves in.

Unfortunately, most of the information they listened to came from their older brother, the six year old now King Viserys III Targaryen.

He was not a good source of information.

He was a child, and an angry, bitter child who spoke constantly abouthis birthright and what was 'stolen' from him when it had never been his since he had never claimed it, never fought for it, never earned it.

Still, he was but a child and his stories and information helped them get a level of understanding for the situation.

Their father had been dethroned from Westeros by someone Viserys simply called the Usurper, and they had been forced to flee from even Dragonstone to hide and live in exile in Essos.

Sometimes, when he was in a good mood, he would recite what he understood of their family history or read it to them from a great history tome in his hesitant, childish stumbling. It was from him that they would learn there were no more dragons, though they would not understand what it meant, what it meant for them, until much later on.

They walked by the time they were eighteen months old, clumsy and uncoordinated, and were happier for it, now able to stumble around by themselves instead of being carried.

(the whispers that made it back to robert baratheon would say they were demons who knew too much, saw too much with those old eyes of theirs)

When they were awake they ate bland, mushy food and played and toddled in the garden, even now sometimes hissing at each other though they weren’t sure why they did it, occasionally taking one by surprise, making them jump and sending them into fits of laughter. When they were asleep they flew, and they fought, and they waged a war long ended.

(but sometimes they saw other things, Others, monsters with blue eyes and cold skin that somehow they knew would burn to the touch)

Making sense of things would take some considerable time. The memories were there, but they were jumbled, faded, fractured, like trying to hold ash in their hands, and and it would be a long time before they could speak to start piecing things together. Sometimes there would be fleeting moments of clarity, but they would pass like music on the breeze or water slipping through their fingers.

Daenara dreamt most often of the world aflame, of warm scales and a hot breeze, of pain in her shoulder, and of men screaming beneath her.

Jaemar dreamt most often of shadows made solid, of men burning alive, of pain in his chest, and of a familiar weight in his hand.

Saeherys dreamt most often of falling.

"Will you marry me?" was Jaemar's first sentence.

Saeherys giggled. Her first sentence was: "Silly, I think I already did.”

"Me too!" said Daenara, and the three toddlers fell around shrieking with laughter at their own private joke while Viserys and the nanny half-watched with little interest.

When you're two year olds with the minds and intelligence of someone sixty years older, you have to get your kicks from somewhere.

The worst part of it was not the confusion, but the boredom. There was never anything to do, and there was only so often that one could play war with dolls and wooden horses, recreate Aegon’s conquest, or chase each other in the gardens before they got bored. On one occasion Ser Willem found Jaemar atop the great fountain in the garden, Daenara perched on the carving a little beneath him while Saeherys fretted and cried in the fountain below for them to come down, water dripping from her silver gold hair.

“You’ll fall!” she wailed.

“Jaemar! Daenara! What are you doing?”

Daenara hissed while Jaemar spread his arms out wide. “We’re learning how to fly!”

“Let’s get you down from there at once.”

It was the first incident of its kind, but it wouldn’t be the last. Jaemar liked to climb the banisters of the staircase and Daenara tried to climb the curtains in the nursery, tearing them from their rails. Both climbed trees in the garden and had to be talked out of throwing themselves down.

“You need to stop this!” Viserys thundered at them one night after yet another tree incident. “I forbid any more of it! You can’t actually fly!”

That was odd, because they could remember doing exactly that.

At least as they got older and bigger, Ser Willem brought in tutors to start teaching them how to read and work their numbers. All their tutors spoke of how clever they were, how well they took to reading and writing, how they appeared to have intelligence beyond their years.

On their third birthday Ser Willem gave Jaemar a wooden training sword. He took to it like a bird to flight and immediately started trying to use it to fight Daenara, with his sister having nothing more than a wooden stick for her weapon. They seemed to have a natural instinct for it, young and clumsy as they were.

Less than two weeks later, Ser Willem brought the girls their own training swords. They would fight with each other - and anyone else - day in day out, delighted to finally have something interesting and useful to do. Viserys smacked the sword from Daenyra's hand when she challenged him. "This is not a toy! Ser Willem should never have got you this! It is not your place to hold a sword! Swords are for those with the intelligence of men!"

Daenara bared her teeth and stared at him with those royal purple eyes that seemed far too bright, far too intelligent. "Visenya and Rhaenys Targaryen," she said.

Viserys threw her sword into the flames of the fireplace.

Daenara did something the Targaryen triplets had very rarely been known to do.

She screamed.

She screamed so loudly the entire house heard.

She screamed so loudly armed men ran to the room, thinking she was being kidnapped or murdered by Baratheon men or assassins.

She screamed so loudly Jaemar shouted 'Visenya' and he and Saeherys came running armed with their own training swords, ready to defend or avenge their sister.

She was inconsolable for hours afterward, sobbing and wailing. At one point Saeherys offered her her sword to try and cheer her up, but Daenara turned it down.

"You need it."

Ser Willem bought her a replacement a few days later. Viserys did not try to stop her again.

If anyone had noticed Jaemar's mistake amongst the chaos, no one said anything of it, but maybe Ser Willem looked at them a little differently from that day on, and some of the guards who would never fight with them before now would.

(the whispers that made it back to Robert Baratheon would say they were monsters, demons who demanded weapons and blood)

Once they were old enough to talk they did, piecing together more of their fractured memories. It was not an easy task. Sometimes one remembered something the others could not; sometimes they argued over the order of things, bewildered by the time that had passed, the conflicting accounts, and the stories told by Viserys, which all too often were distorted versions of the truth; and sometimes they remembered flashes of events that simply couldn’t possibly be right, a flash of sinking fangs into a red scaled neck, a glimpse of towering shadowy ruins, a half-remembered image of a familiar fortress where the angles were all wrong. With every month, week, day, and hour that passed they knew more of who they were, and more and more of what didn’t fit.

There was one big question, however, that preyed on all of them.

“We had our lives. Why are we here?” Saeherys asked one day. “Why are we back?”

“I know not sweet sister,” Jaemar replied. “Perhaps whatever gods are out there have given us a second chance. Or perhaps some dark magic was cast.” He hesitated and looked at Daenara.

She scowled. “Don’t look at me! This was not my doing!”

They eyed each other, wary and challenging for a long moment.

“Whatever the reason, we are here. There is nothing can change that.”

At least they were all together. They could only imagine how much worse it could have been had they been on their own to do this, one without the other two. Here they were always together. Where one went the other two were by their side. It was best like that, safest like that.

No one would be taking their family away from them again.

No one.

They settled into a routine of learning this new world and practising their sword play. It only made dealing with the old memories harder, as they bled together with their new memories of this life and the recollections of flying, of sinking teeth into warm flesh.

Their older brother, the so-called King Viserys III, was lukewarm toward them, and showed them little fondness, perhaps unsettled by their intensity, their maturity, the knowledge in their purple eyes. Perhaps this was partly their fault as well, for they never forgave him for the sword incident and upsetting Daenara, and so never treated him with the adoration of small children or welcomed him into the ‘Three Dragons’ as many in the household had taken to calling them.

Viserys hated that nickname. Anyone who used it in his presence ‘woke the dragon,’ or drove him into a temper tantrum.

Saeherys found it hilarious.

Jaemar found it tiring.

Daenara found it worrying.

He reminded her too much of a boy from her blurry memories.

Oh, he was physically weaker, certainly, and absolutely not the warrior the boy was, but her mind made frightening connections between their personalities. Both had a violent cruelty to them, along with a dangerous craving for power and a belief in what was theirs by ‘birthright’ and both were quick to anger and take offence. Viserys saw himself as a true King, a warrior, a dragon and spoke often about how he would be stronger even than their brother Rhaegar, an apparently renowned warrior, but he did nothing to earn that status. While they spent hours in the gardens or small training hall practising half-remembered drills with their clumsy training swords, he carried his sword as though its presence alone might make him a warrior.

Yet at the same time, he was their family now.

He was all they had.

And of course, he spoke to them when needed, telling them great stories of their deceased parents and brother (who married some Dornish filth) and now-ancestors, many of whom had been utter fools, how their line could have sired morons like that they did not know. Daenara screamed for hours, sobbed for two days and sulked for three weeks flat when she learnt what had become of the great Vhagar.

“Idiots!” she howled in High Valyrian. “Imbeciles!”

All her siblings could do was lay beside her as she cried herself to sleep that night – and many nights more - and provide comfort with their presence.

“Are you well sister?” Jaemar asked as her black mood dragged on. Bad enough they be thrown into whatever this was, the thought of one of them falling…

Daenara gazed out the window across the garden. “I’m well.”

He laid a hand on her shoulder. “What’s past is past. You can’t sulk forever.”

“How could they?” she whispered, her voice shaking. “My poor baby.”

That was the last ever said on the subject, and Jaemar and Saeherys dared never to bring it up again.

Sometimes Daenara dreamed of empty halls and a desperate, painful loneliness, of soaring high above the ground and still feeling she was missing something,

Sometimes Jaemar dreamed of flying over water, of a dark shadow beneath him, and of fire and ash filling the air.

Sometimes Saeherys dreamed of sand in her face and eyes, of a hot breeze on her skin, and of tumbling through the air toward the ground below.

(and sometimes all three dreamed of ice and of snow, a creeping cold that killed everything it touched, crawling over the ground, blackening the sky, bright blue eyes glowing in the darkness)

They did not speak of it.


	3. ii: Her Brother's Keeper

They were five when the next disaster arose.

Ser Willem fell ill.

He took to bed and grew weaker, thinner.

Things around the house began to vanish. Small things at first, trinkets that wouldn’t be missed: items of cutlery, small decorations and fancy pieces, an ornate bowl from the sitting room, a vase from the bathing hall. Jaemar informed Ser Willem the servents were stealing, and several of them were fired. Meanwhile, Daenara and Saeherys, who had been learning to sew again, clumsily stitched as many jewels and coins into their clothes and cloaks as they could without making them too heavy and slowing.

“Too much weight will slow us down,” Jaemar said.

“The weight should help strengthen us,” Daenara replied.

Jaemar also started asking for a real sword. "I'm five now! I can handle a real blade!"

Ser Willem refused at first. Jaemar kept asking.

"Ser Willem has been our protector so far. We don't have our dragons now-” Here Saeherys flinched and Daenara stared, stony faced, at the floor. “-and when he dies we need a way to protect ourselves from the assassins."

Ser Willem had warned them often that the new King Baratheon would send men and assassins after them. According to the information he was getting from Westeros, he refused to stop until all the remaining Targaryens were dead. Viserys would often tell them repeated horror stories, how he had slayed their brother Rhaegar like an animal on the battlefield, how his men had marched into the Red Keep and killed Rhaegar’s wife and babes.

“Baratheon,” Daenara grumbled one night. “We made them. Ungrateful bastards.”

Her siblings didn’t disagree.

At last Ser Willem relented and had both Jaemar and Viserys forged swords. His was a small, slender one, made for a small wielder, but it would do. After all, he was only small right now, and learning to adapt his fighting style to that, to use faster jabs, quicker footwork. He wore the blade everywhere. Daenara and Saeherys found themselves knives, Saeherys from the kitchen and Daenara from one of the guardsmen, small ones, but still sharp enough to cut a man open if they hit him in the right place.

Over the course of three months Ser Willem got sicker, feebler, the flesh rotting from his bones. By the end Daenara could hardly bear to look at him.

(it brought up vague barely remembered images of lying in a bed, thin and frail, struggling to breathe and painfully alone, feeling more alone than she had ever been and regretting her choices more than she ever thought someone could)

He died four months after falling ill.

Viserys declared the house his and expected the servants to work for him now.

Instead the servants locked them in the nursery, which by now was barely used, Viserys being too old and the triplets being disinterested.

Viserys was furious, kicking the door and pacing the room. "Who do they think they are? They dare do this to me? I am the King!"

"You're not King of Essos," said Jaemar, "and at this rate you'll never be King of Westeros."

Viserys smacked him. The blow stung red hot across his cheek. Jaemar stood still and gazed at him with those intelligent eyes.

"Who do you think you are?"

It took all of Jaemar's self-restraint not to tell him exactly who he was.

It would only serve to make him look insane and Viserys would laugh in his face.

"I am your brother; I am your head of house; and I am your King! You do not speak to me like that!"

"You are my brother," Jaemar said, but he said no more. His true brother would never have raised a hand to him, but then their families were enemies now.

Viserys stalked off to bang on the door. “Open this door at once! I demand you let us out!”

Refusing to sit there like stationary targets waiting to be burnt alive from the air, Jaemar and Daenara opened up the window. Saeherys began to sniffle and shake her head. “I’m not climbing out there, I can’t.”

Daenara scoffed. “Don’t be so silly.”

“I’ll fall, I know I will.”

Daenara gripped her shoulders. “You’re a dragon. Dragons are not afraid of heights.”

They all dreamt, sometimes, of flying through the air on great vast wings, the ground stretching out far beneath them, and they could be free and at peace.

Saeherys shook her head. “I can’t do it. Please don’t make me do it.”

Daenara sighed. “You don’t have to you little fool! Only one of us has to go, to open the door from the outside.”

Saeherys brightened a little. “Oh.”

Jaemar stared at the ground. It was nothing compared to the heights in his memory, compared to soaring high through the sky, as he would never do again, but he was only small and uncoordinated without wings in this body, and it was still a long drop. Daenara returned to his side. “I’ll go.”

He looked at her. “This is my duty.”

“No brother.” She squeezed his arm. “This is mine. I let you down enough.”

He stared at her, unreadable, and then nodded. She sat on the windowsill and swung her legs out. Jaemar took his sword belt from his waist and slipped it over her head. “Take this.”

By now Viserys had noticed something of what was going on. Daenara felt for a foothold on the wall, finding one on a decorative ledge that stuck out a very short way, and held onto the windowframe as she turned herself around. The window to the next room was only twelve feet away. Her breaths came in short, even pants. Once upon a time it would have been no great feat, but then once upon a time she could have flown.

A distance like this would have been nothing; she could soar over the gap, burn her enemies beneath her and later feast on their bones.

“What are you doing?” snapped Viserys. Saeherys moved to stop him as he crossed the room, training sword in one hand and knife in the other.

“Visenya,” Jaemar whispered, and then leant forward to kiss her on the lips. “Be careful. ”

She smiled and slid her foot along the thin ledge she had found, edging along towards the next room. Viserys pushed past Saeherys and moved over to the window. “Are you crazy? Get back here! Daenara!”

In places ivy and creeping plants grew up the wall, giving her something to hold on to. Viserys leant out in an attempt to grab for her, only for Jaemar to headbut him in the chest.

“Don’t distract her!”

All it would take would be one wrong step, one bad move.

All Saeherys could see was her falling.

Silver-gold plaits whipped around her face, the ground racing up toward her.

Daenara grabbed the windowframe hard. Opening the window from the outside proved a hard task, for there was no lock nor handle for her to use. She gritted her teeth. She was not going to be beaten by a damn window! She drew Jaemar’s sword, gripping it at the bottom of the blade, and slammed the hilt into the glass with as much force as her little five year old body could. She hit it again and again, until the glass began to fracture, and finally shattered. Daenara broke a hole in the window big enough for her small form to climb through and, after checking the room was empty, collapsed, shaking, on the floor.

She took a moment to steady herself. She was a dragon, a Targaryen, and dragons were not afraid of heights.

Dragons were not afraid of anything.

Daenara held her head high as she freed her siblings from the nursery.

The servants were ransacking the house for anything of worth. Viserys screamed and stamped his foot. “I will have your heads! I am your King!”

They could not stay there. One of the older housemaids laughed in his face. “If you were my son, I’d have you over my knee, King or no.”

Daenara would have done more than that.

Instead she, Jaemar, and Saeherys went to the kitchen, found the sharpest knives, and hid them in their boots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s very little solid information on the life of the Targaryen siblings between the death of Ser Willem and their stay with Magister Illyrio in Pentos, so some creative liberties are taken for those years.


	4. iii: Still Lies the Midnight

They stayed at the house for a matter of weeks afterward. They had money enough for food, but with every day, hour, and minute that passed Jaemar feared more that an attack or an attempt on their lives would come, something that wasn’t helped by Viserys speaking constantly of how the Usurper would send men to hunt them down like the animals they should be hunting. The stag shouldn’t hunt the dragon, that was wrong. The stag was prey.

But where did they have to go? Viserys claimed the smallfolk in Westeros awaited their return and that the loyal Lords made secret toasts to his health, but smallfolk normally liked harvests more than rulers, as far as Jaemar understood it the only Great Houses that did not rise against them were the Tyrells and the Martells (he would have to find out when and how they were finally conquered) and anyway, they were all a sea away with no way to cross it.

(and at night they dreamt of flying, of the taste of blood and fire, and of an icy cold wind that swept over even the skies)

Ruling was one thing, but the monsters the North feared and the scrolls spoke of were out there somewhere.

In the end it was not the Usurper King Robert Baratheon who forced them from their home but the Iron Bank. With Ser Willem dead there was no one to make any payments, and the Bank moved quickly to reclaim the house and furnishings.

The Targaryen siblings were rather unceremoniously put out on the street.

The only good thing about being thrown out of their home and left on the street with nowhere to go was that it was not mind numbingly dull.

The routine wasn’t just gone, it had been smashed to pieces, and they no longer had to keep up what little pretence they had.

The first time Viserys raised his hand to Daenara, proclaiming himself King, she slapped him back, hard enough to bruise, and when he told her she’d woken the dragon she laughed in his face.

The first few days were spent doing nothing but working out how to survive. There was a real, genuine threat of starving to death or being killed by some cut-throat thief.

They had never needed to worry about that before. They had never known true, real hardship like this, in this life or another. Hunger knotted their stomachs and at night they dreamt on feasting on the flesh of stags, the blood warm and metallic in their mouths.

They were soon invited in as guests by another of the Braavosi nobles, a woman called Oriro Nestanor. She feasted them, gave them fine clothes and beds to sleep in.

Daenara hated her.

She showed them off to all her oh-so-important guests like dogs on display, giggled at them like they were curiosities, patted them on the heads when they said something she found amusing.

Viserys tried, clumsily, to court her for her support. "I am blood of the dragon; the rightful King of Westeros. Support me and you will be rewarded."

She laughed like he said something amusing.

To her, he most likely had. Westeros was a continent away, across the sea, and stabilising without the Targaryens.

Why should it be Braavos’s problem?

The triplets found something more useful to do with their time.

They trained with their wooden swords, and they read.

Oriro Nestanor had an extensive collection of books, mostly from Essos, though a few were from Westeros. Every day, when Viserys was out trying to beg money and allies and support, they chose their books, sat down, and read.

Jaemar had never been the most dutiful of students, even in their Beforenow, when he was him and yet not him at the same time. He had to force himself to read, sitting every day on a settee of fine velvet, resting a heavy book on his knee, and staring at the pages until his mind could make sense of the words.

Daenara chose books with mentions of gods and magic, trying to find answers to a situation where there were none.

Saeherys chose books on the recent history and noblest trying to find information and knowledge.

Jaemar picked books on the wars of the past.

(and the whispers that returned to the king's court in westeros said they were clever children, studious children, scarily intelligent children with eyes older than their years)

After three moon cycles Nestanor seemed to be tiring of them. They were no longer exotic toys to her, Viserys was needy and demanding, and the triplets were a little creepy.

They were invited by another Noble, a man called Helin Balthor. He too fed them and clothed them and gave them beds with silken sheets to sleep in, and he had four guards, two of which would spar with the Three Dragons when they were in the right mood.

He made Jaemar's skin crawl.

He hated the way he looked at him, looked at his sisters, hated the way he would touch them too fondly, hated his roaming eyes.

A man like him deserved to be executed. If Jaemar was his King, he would have personally removed his head from his shoulders a long time ago.

But he had riches, riches and promises and connections with the city guard. And where were three physically nearly six year olds meant to go on their own in Braavos? The streets?

Jaemar had never needed to worry about such before.

He had always been able to provide for his sisters, care for them, keep them fed and clothed and safe, bring them jewels and riches and precious jewellery. In another life he made them Queens, but even before he could make sure they lived well.

How could he do that now?

He was a child; a child who didn’t even have a proper sword!

(and the whispers that made it back to weateros said they were mournful children, pining, unhappy)

Six moon cycles after the death of their guardian and loss of their home, the Three Dragons visited the House of Black and White.


	5. iv: Black Courage

Once upon a time - a very long time ago, in another life, when he was another person, a man grown - he had followed the Faith of the Seven, though that was more political than any true belief, and so it was the statue of the Stranger he knelt at first. "Why have you done this to us?" he asked, and for once his voice sounded like the child he physically was. "Why?"

The statue, of course, gave them no answer, and so they moved, praying at the feet of the Lion of Night, the Merling King, the Moon-Pale Maiden (whose statue looked a little like Saeherys might once have done), the Hooded Wayfarer, the Weeping Woman of Lys, and Bakkalon, where they lingered longest.

None of the gods' statues could give them any answers. None could tell them why they were there.

At last they sat by the pool of black water, staring into its depths.

_‘There has to be a reason,’_ Jaemar had said once, but none of them knew of what it was, why this had been done to them.

"Do you want to drink?" Jaemar asked.

This city might not have been here three hundred years ago, but they had heard enough as they grew in this strange new world to know of the waters of this religion. It was the gift of the Faceless Men, they said.

"Do you?" asked Daenara.

Jaemar gazed at his reflection in the inky black water. The face still looked unlike his, too pretty, with too much baby-fat still.

It was the body of a stranger, and even now it felt sometimes like he didn’t fit quite right, like there was something off, something wrong, something cold about it.

But the eyes-

The eyes were him, all the way through.

Old, intelligent, battle-worn and bright, the eyes of a much older man, the man he had once been, when he was him before he was him.

He looked at his sisters.

They would - and once had - followed him to the end of the world and back. They would follow him into eternity if he asked it of them.

A tall man with a black stripe in his orange hair approached them. "Children, why do you cry?"

They hadn’t even realised they were crying. Daenara ran a finger down her damp cheek.

"I'm scared," Saeherys said. "I don't want to fall again."

Daenara squeezed her hand tight. No one would be taking her away again. "It's hard, and I don't understand."

"I don't know what to do," Jaemar said. "And it hurts so much sometimes."

Maybe it hurt even more to admit it. They were lost in this new world where they had nothing and knew no one except each other. He could give his sisters nothing other than what little protection he could provide.

"I was like you once. I know how you feel."

How could he possibly know how they felt? How could he even hope to know how they felt? They, who were stranded in this strange world now, orphaned, betrayed, with a tyrant for a brother and greed snapping at their heels. How could he ever hope to know how they felt?

"I was young, weak, frightened, alone."

If there was one word that lit the fire, it was 'alone.'

Because they were not alone.

They had no dragons, no army, not even an ally.

But they were not alone.

They had each other.

"But I came here. And they bade me drink of this water." He dipped a stone dish into the inky black liquid. "It made me strong, brave, unafraid. It helped me understand." He held the cup to Jaemar. "Drink."

Jaemar stared at it.

Aegon knocked it out of his hands.

The water spilt over the floor, glistening in the light.

He stood. His sisters stood with him.

"No," he said, and for the first time in a long time he sounded like himself, the himself from his memories, the himself he should be. "No."

Were they confused, yes; were they afraid, yes; were they uncertain of the future to come and unsure how much of them was really them yes; but were they alone?

No.

They had each other.

And they were not alone.

They had their differences, but for this they could put them aside. They had their grievances, their issues and regrets, but they were not alone in this strange world, and for that they were grateful, for none knew what they would have done if they had been on their own, one without the others.

How could they cope without their support?

They left the House of Black and White with no more answers to their questions than they entered with.

That mattered not, because they left with each other.

None of them ever spoke of how tempting it had been to drink of that black water.


	6. v: We Were Children Too

Viserys was beyond furious when they returned to the manor they were staying in as guests. His face was reddened with anger, his eyes narrowed with rage. "Where have you been?"

"Taking a walk," Jaemar replied.

"You must never go off on your own like that! You could have been killed by the Usurper's knives! The next time you try something like that-"

"You'll do what?" asked Daenara. "What can you do to us?"

It was true he was older than them by order of birth and so above them in terms of inheritance, as well as taller than them right now, but realistically what could he do right now, here where they had nothing but each other?

Viserys seized a handful of her hair, yanking her towards him and wrenching her up onto her toes. She gasped and shrieked in surprise.

"You talk to me like that?"

Jaemar punched him.

He was strong and lean from the few years of sword fighting and months of jewel laden clothing, strong enough to knock Viserys back at least. Viserys dropped her and stumbled back. "You- You dare-"

Jaemar wrapped an arm around Daenara’s waist, pulling her sharp against him.

"Never," growled the smaller boy, his voice resonating with the authority of one used to being in command, "never touch her."

That was the day a line was drawn.

And Viserys Targaryen was on the wrong side of it.

They talked about leaving him, killing him, striking out on their own, as well as the possibility of him taking the crown, the throne they forged, and the Kingdom they built.

“He’s only a child still,” Saeherys pointed out. “He could grow.”

“He’s one and ten. Old enough to bear a sword if he’d pick one up, old enough to squire,” Jaemar replied.

In the end though he was still a Targaryen, (and there weren’t many of them right now, thanks to the stupidity of their descendants), still their family, and more importantly, still their blood.

"We just need to grow, to get a bit bigger," Jaemar said. "Then we can start doing something."

(the whispers that made it back to the usurper said they were angry children, vengeful children with bloodlust in their too old eyes)

Matters with Helin Balthor came to a close after he threw them a great feast one night where he fed them suckling pig and roasted duck, vegetables fried in spices from far off cities, chatted and laughed with his guests, showed off his pretty baubles-

And then his hand touched far too close to Saeherys's waist.

Jaemar fell on him like an animal, snarling and gnashing his teeth, swinging and punching and striking with his sword until he was pulled away.

They were not welcome in Braavos after that.

Instead they found the first ship that would take them, the captain himself a Valyrian descendent from Lys, and set sail to Myr.

(the whispers that went to king's landing said they were wild, they were untempered, violent, animals with hatred in their hearts and savagery in their eyes)


	7. vi: Bridges to Nowhere

Myr was a beautiful city that welcomed them with open arms. The buildings were tall, with wide windows showing off intricate lace and clothing inside, there were stalls on the street displaying exquisite pieces of jewellery, and everything was made with delicate care.

Saeherys was enthralled almost instantly.

Expensive items and pretty objects - her two favourite things.

The only thing that could possibly make it better was music – which of course there was, flutes and violins being played on every street corner.

Jaemar and Daenara were pretty sure their sister was in love.

They were invited in by one of the Magisters, a man called Zuun Tathkel, almost immediately after arrival. He paid for them to have new clothes in the Myrish fashion and took them on a tour of the city on horseback.

Saeherys dismounted her horse and bounded from shop to shop, stall to stall, peeking at the displays and eyeing up the wares.

"No," said Jaemar before she could ask.

"But-"

"I said no."

Once upon a time - and maybe again, a long time in the future - he could buy his sisters all the jewellery and finery they wanted. Necklaces and bracelets and rings and crowns of gold, petticoats and dresses of silk, fine leather for riding clothes-

But no more.

Now they had to save their jewels and coin for things more important.

Like food.

And hard wearing clothes.

And, almost certainly at some point, keeping a roof over their heads.

Saeherys sighed. "Fine."

Tathkel smiled. "Which one do you like most girl?"

Saeherys's eyes lit up. "That one, and that one, and-"

She stopped.

The next piece was of a dragon, back facing the ground, wings thrust up above its body as though in free fall toward the ground.

"Ah, yes. Myr was once a Valyrian freehold, we do still have some of their images left."

Falling.

Saeherys still dreamt of falling.

Jaemar dreamt more often of burning these days, of struggling to breathe and pain in his chest.

Daenara dreamt of skeletal hands that tried to pull her under the soil.

And still occasionally, far rarer than it had once been, they dreamt of flying on great wings, of hunting the wolf and the stag and the lion, of their warm blood and soft meat in their mouths, and they woke sweating, Saeherys clutching her eyes, Daenara her throat and Jaemar his chest.

None of them talked about it.

They should, one day they should, but for now they avoided the subject.

"I want that one," Saeherys whispered, and even if Zuun Tathkel had not agreed to get it for her, Jaemar would have done. Just that one, only that one.

"Are you sure you should buy us all this jewellery? It's expensive and we can't pay you back."

"Nonsense! It is a gift, given freely!"

They stayed with Thathkel for eleven moon cycles and soon learnt what he really wanted in return for his generosity.

He had three young daughters and a son, all with his chocolate colouring and amber eyes, but the copper hair of their Bravosi merchant mother. The girls had pretty singing voices and the boy could play the harp; all four could dance; and the girls smiled when he talked, blushed when he came near and helped brush Daenara and Saeherys's hair out until it shone like golden moonlight. They were pretty, Jaemar could admit, but he had no desire for them.

What use was a wife whose sole job was to look decorative?

Eventually they wore out their welcome at Thathkel's when he realised they had no intentions of marrying any of his children, and were invited to stay by another of the Magisters, Forran Haisrel, an older man who could clearly see the political benefits of having the last Targaryens under his roof and talked often about providing them monetary support if they were to launch an invasion, which Viserys liked the sound of. He also had a daughter of about Viserys's age, a mousy little thing with big brown eyes.

Eight moon cycles after he invited them, he suggested a marriage pact.

"What; marry her?" spat Viserys. "I'd rather marry a pig!"

They were not welcome in Magister Haisrel's home after that.

They stayed a while longer in Myr, as guests of a few other nobles, but the whispers from Braavos were catching up with them and Viserys's insult of the Magister had not helped relations. Sometimes the triplets wondered why they bothered staying with him.

They reminded themselves that he was their blood, blood of the dragon, just like them.

But he wasn’t like them.

He didn’t remember as they did; he didn’t growl in his sleep like Saeherys, or wake snarling like Daenara; he didn’t remember fighting like Jaemar or falling like Saeherys; he didn’t know what it was like to be alone like Daenara or make decisions like Jaemar.

He’d never flown in his sleep, never tasted the blood or felt the heat of the flames.

In fact, while they still seemed to have their usual comfort with the heat – even more nowadays, Saeherys only felt truly warm in a bath heated to near boiling – the heat seemed to bother Viserys like it would anyone else.

He was a Targaryen, he was their brother, but he wasn’t the Great Dragon he claimed to be.

Of course, he was still a boy, and most boys grew out of tall boasts eventually.

They left Myr for Tyrosh almost a year after they arrived there.

(and the whispers that made it back to king robert said they were children, scared children who had fled in the dark of the night)


	8. vii: Never Bend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

Tyrosh did not have the charm of Myr or the business of Braavos. It was a tired city, tired and old, with older men ruling it.

One of those older men, Vorridar Saleen, almost immediately invited them in as guests. He had no children to try and marry to them, no grandchildren, no nephews or nieces either. They were simply something fancy for him to show off, and he soon grew bored of them. From there they were invited by several others of the Tyroshi nobles and nobility, passed around like pretty baubles or unwanted bastards.

At night, Daenara dreamt of war, of people screaming and children's cries that filled her ears, and of the great guilt that crushed down upon her.

At night, Jaemar dreamt of fire and the stench of salt on a smoky breeze.

At night, Saeherys dreamt of flying, of the wind in her hair, and of dusty sand that filled her mouth and gritted her eyes.

At night they all dreamt of a cold so great it froze the breath in their lungs and washed the colour from their eyes and skin, a cold so great that it could be seen creeping across the ground, great dead monsters that lumbered over the land, and the ice wall of the North, the wall Torrhen Stark had always been so intent on keeping guarded, crumbling to shards and ash.

They did not speak of it.

Eventually the Tyroshi nobles tired of them.

They spent some time out on the streets after that.

Sleeping under the stars was nice.

Being cold and hungry and tired all the time was not.

They used the last of their coin on food and the dirt of the streets turned their silver-gold hair brown, their pale skin a similar colour. Viserys saw threats round every corner, though Jaemar had never seen even one. Not from the Usurper King Robert anyway. He was beginning to wonder whether all the assassins, the men with swords and knives and monsters in human skins that Viserys and Ser Willem had told them of so often even existed.

“But it’s worth keeping our guard up,” Daenara said. “You never know.”

She had proved that to him many times before.

There were plenty of cutthroats and thieves though, stray beasts that snapped at their heels, and unscrupulous men that leered at them despite their ages.

Next they moved on to Lys, travelling again by ship.

"What happens when we wear out our welcome?" Daenara asked. Viserys scowled.

"It doesn't matter. I am the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms and they know I will reward my friends once I have my throne back."

Black fire licked at dark iron, flames roaring hot against their skin so hot it could melt stone and turn metal into molten liquid.

"It was never your throne," Jaemar said.

"It is my throne! I am the rightful King!"

And what had he done to earn that? He was no warrior, he was no diplomat, no peace keeper, nothing. Why did they stay with him? They asked themselves that often. Was it their love for blood ties; a desire to keep family close? Their need for someone older, physically? Entertainment?

They couldn't let him become King if he remained like this.

He would rip apart their kingdom.

"You are King of nothing," spat Daenara.

Viserys smacked her.

Jaemar and Saeherys screamed like it was them struck the blow and all three leapt at him, pummelling with their hands and feet and heads. Viserys was bigger, but there were three of them, three against one, enraged and screaming.

They left him on the floor of their cabin, bloody and bruised.

That was the last time he ever touched any of them. He screamed and shouted and raised his hand, but the moment he did one of them would bear their teeth or show him their fist and he backed down. As a result there was an uneasy truce between them that would last for several years. They had hoped maybe he would mature a little, but instead he just became more bitter and angry. Daenara watched with concerned eyes as the similarities grew and grew. She remembered what had once been done by a king of his cut, and she would do what needed to be done to make sure it never happened again. She only hoped it would never come to that.

The blood of Old Valyria ran strong in Lys even now. Many there still had the silver-gold hair and lilac eyes of the old Valyrians, even the commoners. It should have been easy to hide. No one would notice four extra children on the street. Why would anyone look?

Lys was a beautiful city, more so even than Myr. The buildings were white where they were not painted brightly, musicians played in the street, the woman perfumed their hair and wore it on top of their heads in ornate piles, and women and men alike wore gold and silver draped around their heads, necks, wrists and ankles.

It was enthralling.

For Viserys it was what he dreamed of, what he believed he was owed. He certainly seemed to be happier there. As the last Targaryens, Dragon Lords (true dragons), they were welcomed with open arms and love, quickly being taken in by the rich and powerful nobles of the city. Viserys and Jaemar were given new silk clothes, fine leather boots, gold chains. Daenara and Saeherys were given new silk dresses, golden sandals, silver bracelets. Handmaidens washed and brushed their hair until it shone like the moon again. There were several feasts in their honour, balls and parties and celebrations.

And at night they slept, and they dreamt, and they remembered.

Daenara dreamt often now of being alone, a crushing weight of emptiness that sat on her chest and chewed the flesh from her bones.

Jaemar dreamt frequently now of silvery darkness, of huge, shadowy ruins and red hot talons that sliced open his side.

Saeherys dreamt mostly now of flying over black sands and a piercing pain that seemed to break her skull in half.

They woke crying and hot in the mornings.

During the days they attended the parties and meetings, searching for allies or benefactors. Viserys wanted the crown he said was his, but they weren’t sure if they even wanted that.

What they wanted was information and manpower, knowledge of the current state of Westeros, currently in the middle of a long, hot summer with the Watch on Torrhen’s precious Wall dwindling and manpower to protect it from the coming hurricane.

What they craved was fire and flight and blood.

(they still dreamt sometimes of feasting on the corpses of beasts and the warm coppery taste in their mouths)

"This is a city I will reward when I am King," Viserys would purr as the musicians played or they laid or sheets of Lysene velvet. They would exchange looks.

He could never be King.

Not while he was still like this anyway.

They would make sure of it.

They stayed in Lys for under half a year. With all the parties and balls in their honour they quickly attracted King Robert's attention, and for the first time men armed with swords arrived in search of them. The Lyseni guards of their hosts soon dispatched of them, but Viserys was spooked and so they fled to Volantis in the black of night aboard a trading ship.

Volantis was an old city.

Old and tired.

It stank, of sweat and fish and filth, and was boiling hot and humid. Some days it felt like you could drown walking down the street.

It was the last place anyone would expect to find the Targaryen royals.

It was the last place they would once have expected to find themselves.

They were quickly invited in by the ruling triarchs. They were all older men, elephants, more interested in trade than Viserys's talk of alliances, war and conquest. Their opponents, the Tigers, held a lot more promise. They offered support if they got into power, money and swords.

Only if they got into power though.

According to the history books, there hadn't been more than one Tiger in the triarch in centuries.

The Three Dragons filed it away in the back of their minds though. Perhaps one day the information could be of use, and if nothing else Volantis would make a powerful ally to have.

They stayed in Volantis for a year and a half, moving between the nobles as Viserys begged for help. It was unbecoming of a Targaryen. Targaryens did not beg. They flew, and they burnt, and they took what was theirs.


	9. Viii: Never Break

After Volantis they moved on to Qohor. Before they left they dyed their hair with clothes dye, turning it a deep midnight black. Their reflections in the mirror looked less and less like them every day.

(and at night they dreamt of braavos and myr and tyrosh and lys and an old towering fortress three children in this life had never known with gargoyles studding the walls)

This time they travelled with a wandering Mummer's troop.

It was surprisingly enjoyable.

Saeherys loved it at once, quickly taking to helping them perform, playing the flute and harp on stage.

"I didn't even know she could play the harp," grumbled Viserys. They tactfully ignored him.

It took a little while, but she managed to persuade Daenara to try it as well. She preferred the more active parts, the dancing and singing.

"When did she learn to dance?" Viserys complained.

(because daenara never had, just as saeherys never learned to play the harp, but two girls who grew into women in the time before now had had it drummed into them as soon as they could walk)

Both girls set upon Jaemar to get him to join, finally succeeding in talking him into a display of faux swordsmanship. He easily outshone any of the others there, who could only act while he could truly fight. Viserys complained that it was unbecoming of them, but it was enjoyable.

"I like it here," Saeherys said after a moon cycle had passed and they were coming close to Qohor. "Why don't we stay?"

It was tempting, very tempting, for all of them.

"There's no need for us to go back," Daenara agreed. With every day that passed what had once been felt further and further away from their new truth. Once they knew silk and diamonds and fire and blood, but here they knew freedom.

The girls looked at Jaemar. He sighed. "Do you remember the stories from the North?"

"Those old fairy tales?" Daenara scoffed.

"I talked to Torrhen Stark. He used to talk about creatures the Northmen believed lived beyond the walls. Stories of monsters with skin so cold it burnt and the ground froze under their skin." He shifted to look at them. "Sound familiar?"

They'd seen them, those creatures, in their sleep, roaming the land, turning it into frost and snow and living beings into white skinned monstrosities."

None of them said anymore.

Still, all of them missed the Mummer's troop when they left it.

Qohor was a black city, rough and dirty. The nobles there were harsh and blunt.

"You have an army of Unsullied," Viserys argued. "Ally with us, help us, restore us to Westeros and you will be greatly rewarded."

But the magisters ruling the city shook their heads and clicked their tongues. "We need the Unsullied to defend ourselves from the Dothraki hordes. Without them we would be lost."

Jaemar thought that a good argument. When your entire existence depended on the military defending you from invaders, the last thing you wanted to do was send that same military away to help a foreign power. Viserys didn't see it that way though and continued to complain and beg, going so far as to demand support.

Eventually his behaviour saw them become unwelcome in the houses of Qohor's nobles and once again they were out on the streets. They were starting to run low on money and jewels by that point, even those they had sewed into their clothes all those years ago were much less now.

"We should have stayed with the mummers," Saeherys whispered one bad day when they had eaten nothing but a stale bread loaf between them and drunk nothing but a few cups of black water shared out.

Jaemar hated it, but he agreed. He had made the wrong decision there, choosing to follow their dreams of what had been and what could be instead of what was and what was best for them now. They had been happy with the Mummers, happy and fed and clothed and sheltered.

Now what did they have?

Viserys had to sell Queen Rhaella's crown to buy them food. He hated that, seethed and grew bitter over it. "This is your fault! You killed her! Why couldn't you have been one more dead brat?"

They ignored him. He rarely said anything of any interest anyway.


	10. ix: Never Back Down

They moved on from Qohor to Norvos, travelling this time with a group of traders. Viserys continued to mope.

"Why do we keep him around?" sighed Daenara.

"He's family," replied Saeherys curtly. "Although sometimes I wondered that about you too sweet-sister."

Daenara stuck her tongue out rather childishly.

(and at night daenara dreamt of a bigger boy pushing a smaller one and a crushing lonely emptiness; jaemar dreamt of exhaustion and darkness; saeherys dreamt only of falling and crashing through the air)

Norvos was an odd city where everyone except the priests wore their hair shaven. Men had drooping moustaches, women painted their bald heads.

They were invited in by a few of the nobles a little half-heartedly. By now the last of the Targaryens were old news and people were more interested in other things, like politics, trade and the assassination of all but one daughter of Magister Thathkel of Myr's family.

"Huh, I wonder how that happened," said Daenara. Jaemar looked at her. She looked back.

"Daenara," he said. She shrugged.

"I've been here with you all the time haven't I?"

The feasts and soft beds and new clothes for them were much less these days.

Towards the end of their stay the Golden Company arrived. Viserys sold much of their remaining jewels to throw the captains a feast and plead for their help. It was embarrassing to watch.

Saeherys made conversation with the two men to her right, who seemed more amused than anything at the young silver haired girl, while Daenara tried to gently nudge the conversation to be a little more tactful and less demanding on their behalf. Jaemar though was interested in something more than the captains.

He was interested in the sword one of them was wearing.

It bothered him, nudging at the back of his mind, awakening blurry memories of endless hours spent performing drills, cutting through men and armies, a steady weight in his hand. Memories from another time, another life, when he flew through the sky and his sisters wore leather and silk.

_Blackfyre._

The name whispered at the back of his mind and he knew it was right.

He knew he needed it.

He needed that sword.

He needed it more than he needed food and water and air and his sisters.

Daenara nudged him. “You’re staring.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I need that sword.”

She looked.

She looked, and she knew.

Her memories showed it in the hands of two wielders, one a worthy man and one less so.

Jaemar kicked his chair back. He needed that sword. This stranger had no right to it anyway! It was a Targaryen family heirloom; what was it even doing here? Had he stolen it, or been gifted it by one of their idiot ancestors or bought it after the Usurper drove them from Dragonstone?

He cared not.

He needed it back.

Daenara touched his arm.

“Don’t.”

“But-”

He wanted it.

He needed it.

He was craving it, it was his, and it was more than that, much more than that.

Saeherys touched his other arm.

“Don’t.”

“But-”

“Aegon,” murmured both girls.

Jaemar sat down.

The Captains laughed merrily and got steadily drunker throughout the night.

As did Viserys.

Drunk enough that their guard was down and child shaped shadows in the camp could be shrugged off as tricks of the imagination.

Viserys was in a black mood when they returned to their inn room. "Who do they think they are? When I have my crown, I will make sure they remember this."

He would never have that crown.

The triplets would guarantee it.

The following morning The Golden Company woke to find the Company Commander dead in his tent, his throat slit from ear to ear, and the Company’s most prized possession gone from his side.

The Targaryen siblings fled from Norvos that day, and the Three Dragons’ dragon’s blood sang a little louder in their veins.

They were on the streets for a very long time after that. The interest in them had all but ran out, and so had the money and jewels. At last they met with another Mummer's troop. Dragging Viserys with them, they joined up.

None of them would say it to each other, but all of them liked it. Once upon a time they had a life of finery and jewels, silk clothing and valyrian steel (which of course they may or may not have had again), this though, this was life and living.

They dyed their hair scarlet red while staying with the Mummer's troop. The dirt and sun of the road turned their pale skin brown. The only part they couldn't hide - the only part that looked like them - was their royal purple eyes.

Some days they didn’t even recognise their own reflections.

Even now sometimes, as the life they once lived seemed to get further and further away with every hour and day and moon that passed, they felt an oddness deep within them, a yearning for the sky and a desire to be truly warm like they never seemed to be.

They grew from beautiful children into a pretty young man and beautiful young women, lithe and strong. Jaemar wore his dyed hair chopped raggedly at his chin; Daenara and Saeherys both wore theirs long, Daenara in plaits and Saeherys loose. They sparred daily, with each other and anyone else they could, though the sword that sang for Jaemar’s hand remained wrapped in a blanket and stashed with his belongings. They couldn’t risk others seeing it, recognising it. Only Viserys was unhappy and begged at the settlements and cities they stopped at to support him, to give him an army. For nearly three years they might have forgotten about everything, forgotten about who they were, what they once were, except-

At night Daenara dreamt of flying, of an inferno burning beneath her.

At night Jaemar dreamt of soaring through the air, of screams on the wind.

At night Saeherys dreamt of falling, tumbling through an endless hot sandy breeze.

(and they all dreamt of the creeping cold, of ice that moved over the land like a living thing, of the sea freezing in ripples and white monsters that walked on it like the ground, of huge creatures with rotting faces, and of dragons with decaying wings that breathed great torrents of white-blue fire)

"They're coming," Saeherys said. "We have to be ready."

They were not ready. They had no dragons, no army, no allies, no way to fight.

They would die in the endless cold.

And still they dreamt of the cold and snow, of blue-white lightning that illuminated the sky, of monsters that were living ice with hateful glowing eyes.

They woke cold in the mornings.


	11. X: These Are the Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire, nor A Game of Thrones.

Magister Illyrio Mopatis approached them in Pentos. He was a portly man with curly brown hair wearing fine clothing with bodyguards and slaves following his every move. Viserys brought him over to them after their performance ended. "This is Magister Illyrio. We'll be dining with him tonight."

The triplets exchanged looks. They had no intention of finding themselves at the mercy and favour of the Essossi nobles again. Magister Illyrio smiled. It did not meet his eyes.

"You must be Jaemar," he said, offering him his hand.

Jaemar did not take it.

"And these are your beautiful sisters. Daenara and Saeherys. Which one is which?"

Daenara showed him her teeth.

Viserys introduced them.

Magister Illyrio invited them as guests and talked earnestly about supporting their claim with money and men, something no other noble had yet done. The triplets, reluctantly, decided to give him a chance. They couldn’t trust him of course, not as far as they could throw him in these young, small bodies (they were still sure sometimes that they should be bigger so much bigger than this and cover the land in their shadows and flames), but they could hear him out and listen to his honeyed promises and poisons.

He brought them new clothes, fine food, housed them in lavish quarters. When the triplets voiced their interest in swordplay he brought in a tutor and bought them new weapons.

He wanted something.

"No one does all this from the goodness of their hearts," Daenara said, and her siblings whole heartedly agreed.

They would discover what it was seven moon cycles later.

"I propose an alliance between myself, you, and Khal Drogo of the Dothraki.”

"Khal Drogo?" Saeherys asked. She recognised the name as though it was something she had heard before, but knew nothing else.

"Very powerful Dothraki warlord," muttered Jaemar. "And why would we do this?"

"Khal Drogo commands forty thousand Dothraki screamers my Lord. Ally with him and you would have the strength to launch an invasion of Westeros."

They had one thousand, six hundred men for the conquest, though of course they had acquired more as they gained allegiance from the Lords. Forty thousand would indeed be a good number, and it was higher than their current count of zero. Of course, Dothraki screamers wouldn’t be best suited for Westerosi terrain, but then they wouldn’t need to be.

"How soon can we make this alliance?" Viserys asked.

"Well, it will take a few weeks to sort everything my King."

"How will the alliance be made?" Daenara asked. Illyrio had conveniently failed to mention that so far.

"How are all alliances made?"

Their hearts sank. They knew the answer to that, though it had never affected them as Targaryens. Dragons such as them were above such banal, base things and laid not with the beasts of the field.

"Khal Drogo desires the most beautiful and exotic woman in the world as his khaleesi _._ ”

“Absolutely not,” Jaemar said icily.

“We can provide him with that, and give him a wife with blood connections to the King of Westeros,” Illyrio continued, as though not hearing him.

"I am not marrying some horse Lord savage!" Daenara snapped. "And neither is my sister."

"My Lady, Khal Drogo would make a powerful ally."

"I said no!" She kicked her chair back, stood, and stomped from the room, Saeherys close at her heels. Jaemar followed them out. The door slammed shut.

Daenara stormed out to the gardens and kicked the life out of a bush, spitting curses in Old High Valyrian and the bastard Valyrian tongue of Braavos.

Jaemar took Saeherys's arm to hold her back and waited. It was best not to disturb their sister when she was in such a mood.

At last Daenara took a step back and muttered 'fuck him' under her breath.

"Are you finished?" Jaemar asked. Daenara scowled and kicked the bush again.

"Now I am."

"Can we talk about this?"

They sat in one of the verandas. Daenara set about polishing her knife. "I'm a married woman. I'm not marrying some Dothraki fool."

“The strategy is solid.”

"I am not marrying another man! I refuse to do it."

"Visenya."

"Aegon."

"You're behaving like a child."

"I'm barely more than a child! I have rights to behave like one!"

Jaemar closed his eyes. For a moment it felt like the weight of the world and history was on his shoulders.

"I won't make you do it," he said. "But we'll need to leave; Viserys will."

"I could do it," Saeherys suggested. "The marrying thing I mean."

"No," said Jaemar and Daenara as one.

"No," said Daenara again. "You've heard of what the Dothraki are as much as we have."

They were warriors, powerful ones, but savages. She couldn't subject Saeherys to that, her sweet sister who fell far too soon, no matter what disagreements they might have had. "Jaemar, can you leave us? I want to talk to my sister."

He nodded and left them.

Saeherys took Daenara's hands. "Are you alright sister?"

Daenara closed her eyes. "I'm letting us down again, trying to do my own thing."

"That's not true. You've always been pig-headed, you're just being you."

"You're not cheering me up." She opened her eyes. "But there was a reason he always liked you better."

Khal Drogo had an army behind him. A marriage to him would put an army behind her, an army behind them. It was true, the strategy was firm.

"Can you promise me something?"

Saeherys leant forward until their heads knocked together. "Anything."

"Look after him."

When Jaemar came back a decision had long since been made.


	12. XI: For Trying Our Souls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

They returned to the house calmer if not happier and dined with Illyrio and Viserys that night.

"An alliance will be made between us and the Dothraki."

Daenara shuddered at the thought, the idea of a man not her husband touching her and putting his hands where only one man and one woman should put their hands.

"Daenara, you are to marry Khal Drogo. His army will give us back what is ours and restore us to Westeros.”

Not if they had anything to do with it.

They needed manpower, they needed an army, but they had conquered once (and maybe they would again) and there was more to life than conquering and more to ruling than sitting on a throne.

“Saeherys-"

She looked up from her plate of food. "You and I are to wed."

Her stomach twisted. Jaemar covered her hand with one of his. “Saeherys is to be my wife.”

They had always expected the demand would come eventually, two sisters for the two brothers, but with one blow still stinging the expectation cut deep. Viserys frowned. “I am the older brother; I get first choice.”

“The eldest brother marries the eldest sister,” Daenara said dryly. That was how it was; that was how it had always been, unless, as with the couple that had once been their parents and the man people called their brother, there was no sister to marry.

“Do you think I would want you after you become a Horselord’s slut? You can have that one dear brother.”

Jaemar growled. “I’ll keep mine.”

He’d keep them both, eventually, his sisters, his wives. No one – no one, certainly not Viserys Targaryen – would be taking them away from him, not again, not this time.

“I am the King; I need heirs. Saeherys and I, we will create the next generation of Targaryens."

Saeherys flashed him her teeth.

“I will marry and sleep with no man except my husband.”

She might have played with many, but she slept with only one, and that was the way matters would remain.

Viserys smiled. “Good. Then it’s settled.”

Later, in the room she shared with Daenara, she paced and raged. "What does he think he’s playing at? I'm not marrying him."

She had a husband, one here with her, one she loved. Oh, she had of course once expected to be sold off like goods to the closest pure ally until her husband marked his intent and claimed her, but now was not then, and then was not now. At least, she didn’t think so. It was so hard sometimes even now, sorting between what was her then and her now and making sense of the memories that slipped through her fingers.

The only thing she remembered clearly was flying, flying and falling.

"This is worse than my match," Daenara agreed.

“I’ll kill him before I let him touch you my love," Jaemar growled.

Saeherys smiled sweetly. "You do say the nicest things brother."

He curled his upper lip. "I know."

Hours rolled into days and days into months. There were options, of course, but none of them were tasteful or desirable. There were options in Westeros they had considered and discussed, but one was unthinkable and the others would require them to bring something to the table and they had nothing to bring. Of course the one place they truly wanted to go – the one place they needed to go, the one place they were needed – would likely take him penniless, clothless, weaponless, though they mightn’t like it – and nor would Westeros – but they wouldn’t take his sisters. And nor would they let him keep them. Of course, here he was barely keeping them, losing them to other men, but they were together and not apart. Besides, what good could he do as one man against the oncoming storm?

He needed manpower, he needed an army, and he needed fire.

(they needed dragons like they still dreamt of flying through the air and destroying what was in their path but the dragons were all gone and only they remained against what was to come)

At last came the day when the Dothraki horde was camped outside the walls of Pentos.

They turned back to reading and learning, hiring a tutor to learn as much Dothraki as they could and continuing their sword training. The Dothraki would be of no use for a conquest, but they were lethal in battle, and there would be many battles to come.

When push came to shove, sacrifices had to be made. They would defend what was rightfully theirs and if they lived through it then they would turn to what else was in their way.

Daenara stood with Saeherys in the bathing room, staring out at the city as the handmaidens Illyrio had provided prepared her bath.

Soon she would be married to a man who was not her husband. The thought made her stomach churn.

There had been rumours of course, rumours about their relationship, about that cruel boy and his parentage, but she had been true and only ever lain with one men in spite of everything and the temptation to find comfort when she was left so very alone. There was one she could easily have found comfort in, his name now dirt, and yet she never did.

She swallowed the nausea, told herself to shape up. This was necessary if they were to protect the Kingdom they had built, and she could not allow it to be the fate of sweet, happy, loving Saeherys who fell far too soon.

It had to be her.

"Daenara!" came Viserys's shout. "Saeherys!"

Daenara sighed. "In here."

Over the past year they had stayed with Magister Illyrio while details were fixed and negotiations finished, Viserys had become much more confident in himself - and a lot more arrogant. Whereas they had hoped he would grow out of his boyhood overconfidence and conceited nature, he had only grown into it, lusting more and more after the Iron Throne as Illyrio fed him sweet honey and promises about his triumphant return to Westeros. It was confirmation of all the things Viserys had spent years believing in, of course it only served to boost his confidence.

To put that boy at the head of an army would be murder, Daenara thought, but what did he care for their knowledge and experience?

Viserys scurried into the room with a heap of white fabric in his arms. "Look. Gifts from Illyrio."

Daenara led Saeherys over. She wrapped one arm around Darenara's neck, the other around her waist. The fabric was two dresses, floor length and white.

"Touch it. Feel that fabric."

"Why?" Daenara asked. "We're going to be wearing them aren't we?"

"Feel it!"

Daenara sighed and ran one hand down the dress. Saeherys smiled and snatched hers, stroking it and holding it to her chest. Even during their stay with Illyrio they hadn’t possessed something so expensive. It reminded her of her wedding day so long ago, standing in the courtyard under the sun as the dragons sang overhead. They had family then, family, and servants, and men loyal to them. Now there was nothing, nothing but each other and Viserys. And he scarcely counted.

"It's so beautiful," Saeherys said, pinning it against her. Daenara frowned slightly.

"Isn't he a gracious host?"

Daenara let hers fall to the floor in a silky heap. "We've been his guests for over a year. All these gifts will have strings attached."

"Illyrio's no fool.”

No, but she had one of those stood in front of her.

“He knows I won't forget my friends when I have my throne." He reached for the clasps of her dress. She slapped his hand away.

"That is for my husband and my handmaidens to see. Not you."

Viserys scowled. "You wouldn't want to wake the dragon would you sweet sister?"

He was no dragon.

They had known that for a very long time. He was still a Targaryen, and they were lacking in those right now, but he wasn’t like them. How could he be, when he had never remembered, never flown, never tasted the hot meat and blood in his mouth.

Sometimes she found it hard to believe they were of the same bloodline. They only really had need for his plans, the army he craved. What need did they have for him, when he was trying to take the only thing they had from them?

They would cast him to the ground and Viserys Targaryen would be crawling along behind their feet.

He turned to Saeherys. "Come. Let me see."

Saeherys giggled. "You've seen plenty. Wait for your wedding night."

"Let me see one more time. I need you to be perfect today."

Saeherys smiled, showing off far too many teeth, and reached behind her back to unfasten her dress. The fabric dropped around her arms and slipped down to pool at her feet. She licked her palm and ran the hand from her breast to hip as Viserys circled her. This was as close as he’d ever get: only one man ever had his hands on her in that way, and only one man ever would. She would guarantee it, one way or another.

"Good." Viserys circled her. "Good. You have a woman's body now. You and I, we will be gods."

She would be a god. He would be a shadow of a rat.

"Daenara. I need you to be perfect. Can you do that for me?"

Daenara showed him her teeth. "Of course."

Except she was not perfect and never would be.

She had proven that once; she had proven that a thousand times.

Viserys walked to the door. "When they write the history of my reign, they will say it began today."

The door closed. Daenara licked her lips. Saeherys stepped behind her and untied her dress. It fell to the floor. "He will never touch me."

Daenara took her hand and tugged her over to the bath.

The servants and slaves all knew by now not to protest, for they were well known for loving the heat.

The scalding hot water brought some warmth to these cold bodies.

They bathed and were dabbed in sweet oils before dressing in the silk white dresses. Jaemar met them outside the bathing room. "You both look wonderful."

"Thank you," chirped Saeherys, spinning on the spot so her dress swished. "Look at how pretty the dress is."

"It's very pretty," Jaemar agreed. It reminded him of another she once wore on another night in another life. Beofre he was him he had had so much fun removing that. Except this time she was going to be marrying a man who wasn't him, a man not her husband, a man she hated on principle.

He led them out to the balcony where Illyrio and Viserys were waiting. Viserys smiled. "Here they are! You look perfect. Now, act it for Khal Drogo."

Act it.

Saeherys had always been good at that, but Daenara was the ice, the warrior, the fighter, and she was nowhere near perfect, not after what she had done in the name of best interest.

They waited and waited.

The Dothraki took their sweet time.

While Saeherys ran her hands over her dress and Jaemar threw poisonous glares at Viserys, Daenara leant on the railing and watched the sky. This was her penance, she told herself, this was the price she had to pay for all the betrayals she never dared admit but had to be known by now from the history books. She had to do something right this time. She would pay this price so Saeherys didn’t.

Khal Drogo was a huge man, bigger even than Aegon had been when he fought to conquer Westeros, with dark skin and long, thick black hair decorated with bells. He rode a large, chestnut stallion and rode up to the balcony to study the girls.

Jaemar wrapped an arm around Saeherys’s waist and drew her close. She nuzzled into his shoulder. She’d have him for her true husband and no one else.

Daenara moved down onto the steps to meet the Horselord. He looked her over and she could see his hunger, his desire, read it in his eyes. She raised an eyebrow and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her sword. He nodded and rode back to his men. The four of them left.

"Is that it?" Viserys demanded.

"He's made his decision."

Daenara felt like inanimate goods and hated it. She was no mere pretty trinket to be bought and sold at another’s whim.

"But he didn't say anything!” Viserys whined. “How do we know if he likes her?"

"If he didn't like her, we would know."

Daenara went to Jaemar's room that night, dressed only in a fine silk slip that barely covered what it needed to cover. Jaemar had rarely seem his sister wear such, in this life or the other. Then she had preferred riding leathers and armour; here she dressed for practicalities and ease. This was all show, and doing a very good job of showing him exactly what she wanted him to see.

She perched on the end of his bed.

"What is it you want to talk about sweet-sister?" he asked. She wet her lips and twisted her foot this way and that.

"I am to marry Khal Drogo to give us an army."

An army they needed, as without either dragons or manpower they could not battle anything, and dragons were gone from the world.

"That is the plan, yes."

Daenara licked at her lips. "He'll be my husband in name, but never in soul or spirit. Regardless of whether we always got along or did what was best for each other, you are my husband. I let you down so very badly, but you are my husband and Rhaenys is my wife. No Dothraki savage or fool beggar brother is going to change that."

"What are you saying?"

She gazed up at him through her lashes.

“I’m no fool.” Not where it came to this, though she was and had been in other ways. "I know you'd rather spend your nights with Rhaenys. But I don't want the first man I lay with in this life to be some Dothraki savage. You are my husband Aegon." She pressed herself close to him and licked his neck. "Act like it."

He pulled her close and dragged her down onto the sheets. "Sweet sister I thought you'd never ask."

Her fingers fumbled for his breeches while his pulled at her slip. A knock came at the door.

"Are you expecting visitors?" Daenara asked.

"No." Jaemar pulled his robe on and opened the door to find Saeherys on the other side. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed him into his room.

"The first man I lie with will not be that fop Viserys." A moment later she noticed Daenara. "Oh. Am I interrupting dear sister?"

"Yes," Daenara drawled. "He's mine for tonight."

Saeherys raised her eyebrows. "Can't we share?"

Afterwards they lay together in his bed, their hands knotted together. Saeherys was curled into Jaemar's chest, while Daenara laid sprawled out at his side. Saeherys peered at her. "Are you awake sister?"

"Mm."

"Are you afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Marrying a man who's not our husband."

"The great Khal Drogo? No, I'm not. I can handle some Dothraki savage. There are things we need right now, things we don’t have. Khal Drogo and the Dothraki can give us those things.”

Saeherys sighed. “I don’t like it sweet-sister, you to degrade yourself like this. The dragon has no place laying with the beasts of the field.”

“I don’t like it either, but you know the situation we’re in as well as I. What good would it do for we three to return to Westeros like this? We need money, we need manpower.”

They need fire.

Saeherys sighed, dropping her head back onto Jaemar’s chest. “I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it. Are you afraid little sister?"

"A little. Viserys is nothing, but he has got a temper. And arrogance."

"Remember who you are. Remember you're a dragon, you have teeth and claws and fire. He has no rights to you no matter what he says. And always remember to keep a knife in your boot."

Saeherys giggled and reached across Jaemar for Daenara's hand. "Always."

Daenara squeezed her hand and leant over their brother to kiss Saeherys. "We're not on our own."

Even now it sometimes went through their heads how much worse this would all be if they were on their own. But they weren't on their own, they would never be on their own for as long as the other two still lived.

They had no plans of one of them falling this time.

(saeherys still dreamt of falling, sometimes, plummeting through the air while the ground reared up beneath her; jaemar dreamt of fire and of blood and of flying; daenara dreamt of flying, of smoke and ash that rained from the sky)


	13. XII: The Day the Stars Died

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

Viserys wed Saeherys the following day in a private ceremony. It was quiet, only the four of them and Magister Illyrio, who performed the ceremony.

Jaemar grit his teeth as the woman he loved married another man and Viserys Targaryen sealed his fate.

(in a time long gone they remembered how busy and vibrant their weddings were, the family surrounding them, the music and dancing)

Despite his demands and new rights, Saeherys refused to let him touch her that night, or any following night, holding her dagger tight and baring her teeth at him.

The glorious new generation of Targaryens was not off to a good start.

Daenara's marriage to Khal Drogo came the day after and was an all over more lively (and violent) affair. She sat stiffly beside her new husband, her hands clenched in her lap, and watched as his khalasar rioted around them. From what she had read the Dothraki considered a wedding with less than three deaths very dull. Her siblings sat to one side. Every so often she caught their gaze and they shared a knowing glance.

Khal Drogo was her husband, but they were her completing parts. They needed his Khalasar and his army, but they didn’t ultimately need him.

Gifts were brought for the new couple, weapons and clothes mostly. From one man came a huge black dragonbone bow, which Daenara itched to get her hands on but Drogo immediately gifted to one of his Bloodriders. Daenara saw her siblings eyeing the bow as much as she was. From another man, a Westerosi named Jorah Mormont, came a small pile of books on the History, Geography, and Great Families of Westeros.

"They say you love to read," he said. She smiled.

"Thank you."

There was no price on knowledge and information.

From Illyrio came a large, oak wood chest. His servants opened it.

Daenara's breath caught.

_This_ was what they needed, what they craved; _this_ was what they yearned for-

And why was he just handing it over?

Why would he do that?

Illyrio must have mistaken her silence for confusion and slash or awe. "Dragons’ eggs Daenara," he explained. "From the shadowlands beyond Asshai. The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty."

Daenara glided down to the eggs and knelt beside the chest. The first was black, like the midnight sea, alive with scarlet ripples and swirls; the second was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks scattered across the scaled shell; and the third was pale cream streaked by gold. Was it coincidence, Daenara wondered as she picked up first one, then the second and then the third, cradling them against her as her siblings could only watch.

They were warm.

Only faintly, beneath the stone, but-

They were warm.

And while cold eggs were dead, warm eggs meant live dragons.

She could sense the life inside them, long dormant, but warm and humming, waiting to be awakened. Daenara pressed her hand to the stone scales of the black egg, the largest, as though this cold body might be able to provide enough heat here and now to wake the hatchling.

Nothing came forth.

She placed them back in the chest.

It felt like she was breaking away a part of herself.

"They're beautiful. Thank you for your kind gift Magister."

To one side she could see her siblings eyeing the eggs as though in disbelief. For sixteen years they had been told there were no dragons, that they had grown small, sick, dead. They had spoken often of the possibility of there being eggs left, on Dragonstone or in the crèche there, or elsewhere in Westeros, but without holding Dragonstone, without any money, they had put aside the idea of getting their hands on them.

Daenara didn’t trust the fact they were simply being handed them.

Not one bit.

The final gift came from Khal Drogo himself, a beautiful dappled white mare with bells on her mane and tail.

Once upon a time she had been given silk and leather, jewels and gold and eventually a crown.

Only a Dothraki Lord would think a horse was a good gift for his new wife.

Still, Daenara fawned appropriately, thinking of the dragon eggs - her dragon eggs - as she reached up to the mare. "She's beautiful."

It wasn't a lie. A horse was hardly the mount she wanted, but the beast was stunning as horses went.

Khal Drogo took hold of her waist and lifted her onto the horse sidesaddle. Daenara grunted, flashed him her teeth, and shifted to swing her leg over to ride astride, tearing her fragile dress as she did so. The Khal roared with laughter and clapped her arm with one meaty hand, then mounted his own horse and took her reins.

Viserys smiled up at her. "Make him a very happy man sweet sister."

It was very hard to resist the urge to kick him in the face.

The Khal led her through the crowd of rowdy Dothraki to cheers and whooping. Daenara gritted her teeth. She had always hated riding without being in control. It made her feel like a prisoner.

Dragons were not prisoners, they were not a slave or a trophy, they were wild and untameable.

They stopped on a rocky outcrop by the sea. Somewhere over that was her birthplace, Dragonstone, the family seat ceded to the traitor Baratheons who had forgotten who made them, and further away was Westeros, the land they conquered in another life.

The land they would protect and defend.

If they had to, they would take it again for them. Viserys was unfit to be King. He was a spoilt brat and reminded her still of the cruel boy, still mewling for mummy and demanding what had never been his in the first place.

If you wanted something, really wanted something, that you couldn't have, then you took it any way you could, and you took it with steel, and with fire, and blood. But then you had to hold it, and holding it could be harder than taking it. Viserys seemed to truly believe Khal Drogo was going to hand him an army and the Usurper would hand him Westeros, as he believed was his right.

Khal Drogo unfastened the back of her dress. Daenara gasped and caught it as it fell, clutching it to her. "No."

She was not going to be had like an animal by some Horse Lord savage.

(and she remembered back when she was her before she was her, wrapped in her true husband’s arms, their first night after the marriage)

Drogo only laughed and pulled the dress from her hands, letting it fall to the dusty ground. Daenara grit her teeth and swallowed.

As Visenya she would never have stood for this.

But Visenya Targaryen had a dragon, two dragon riding siblings, and an army to back her up.

Daenara Targaryen had three dragon eggs, three siblings, and the army that belonged to her husband.

Two of those things had only happened because she married Khal Drogo.

But what she did have was her pride.

Daenara snarled and elbowed the brute in the stomach, twisting from his arms. He grunted in surprise, making another grab for her. She wrenched the knife from her boot, jabbing it at him. “Touch me again and I’ll take your balls off.”

He growled something in Dothraki, of which Daenara understood ‘foreign bitch,’ ‘Khaleesi,’ ‘beauty,’ and ‘fool’s horse.’

“I am a Targaryen of the House Targaryen, and if you think you’re going to take me here with all and the stars and ancestors to see, you’ve made a mistake.”

He roared in furious Dothraki. She snarled back. She could remember being wrapped around black scales under the stars, but that was then and this was now – at least, she believed so. It was hard to separate it all sometimes.

And still-

She was a dragon and not a beast to be taken here in the open field.

“Give me gifts and I will give them to you, make me happy and I will make you happy in return.”

It might be her penance to be married to a man not her husband and Khal Drogo might be a fine killer, a mighty warrior, he might be giving them an army, but she was a Targaryen of Dragonstone, a Queen of Westeros, a dragon. She snatched up her torn dress, dirtied from the mud. He made a grab at her arm. She dodged away, swinging and clutching her knife.

“Lay a finger on me again and I will open your throat!” She hugged her dress tight against her. Once upon a time, in another life her wedding dress had been shredded that night too, though it had been considerably more enjoyable.

“I am a Queen and I shan’t be taken like some animal!” She snatched the horse’s reins. “If I must be humiliated and demeaned like this, it will be done in private.”

“You mine now. You don’t give me orders,” he grunted, slower this time so she understood.

“I belong to no one; I am my own,” she snapped back.

(and it was true since she never truly belonged to her husband even back then he could never control her)

“You’ll take me when I want in the privacy of the tent or not at all. If you ever try to touch me like that again, you won’t live as half a man long enough to bemoan it.”

“You have fire in you,” he grunted.

Daenara growled, and the dragon in her snarled along.


	14. xiii: Ashes of Old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire. All rights to the rightful owners.

Viserys insisted that he, Jaemar, and Saeherys stay with the Khalasar as they travelled to Vaes Dothrak to gain some sort of acceptance for Daenara’s marriage to Drogo. It was the entire opposite direction to where they wanted to be, but Daenara was glad of their presence. At least she was not to be on her own with the savages in this strange new world.

Her second night with Drogo was the same as the first as he slipped into their tent in the dead of night, drunk and stumbling on that piss they called ale, and tried to force himself on her. She bit him that time, and he backhanded her hard enough to leave a bruise. Jaemar was furious and went so far as to voice intentions to kill him. If not for Saeherys draping herself over his shoulders and crooning calming words in his ear he might well have done.

As they rode Daenara heard Drogo bemoaning ‘beauty’ and ‘fool’s horse’ to his bloodriders.

“You’re supposed to be making him happy,” Viserys complained.

“I am a dragon of the House Targaryen. We don’t lay with the beasts of the field.”

It continued like that, until on the fifth night, when he made no attempt to force it. She pushed him against the wall of the tent, sunk her nails into his skin like claws so deep she drew blood, bit his shoulder, and it was tolerable if not enjoyable. Oh, she was never going to say she liked it – not with a man that wasn’t her husband – but it got easier as the days passed.

Saeherys was still refusing to let Viserys anywhere near her. The first and only time he tried a stunt like Drogo’s she left a long bloody gash down his face with her dagger.

(the dothraki laughed openly at the beggar khal without a throne who couldn’t even take his own wife)

Still, the endless riding was tiring for all of them. Even in their past lives they had never spent this much time on horseback. When they travelled they did it through the skies, gliding on massive wings that shadowed the land beneath them and bathing their enemies in fire.

For a long time they had believed they would never do that again.

Now though-

Now they had a chance.

They had the eggs.

They could hatch new dragons, they could defend their Kingdom, and they could defeat the monsters in the cold with fire and vengeance.

Each of them carried one of the eggs: Jaemar the black and red, Saeherys the cream and gold, and Daenara the green and bronze.

(was it coincidence they wondered and they didn’t know and they didn’t care)

They could feel the life within them, sense it there, and every night they placed the eggs upon a brazier to keep them warm, but so far they still seemed dormant. Of course there was more than one way to persuade an egg to hatch, but it had to be done right, at the right time. One couldn’t force it, or the hatchling would be sickly, deformed.

They only had three eggs.

They couldn’t take that risk.

And yet still their hearts yearned.

Also travelling with them was the Westerosi man, Jorah Mormont, who proved to be an endless supply of support, advice, and irritation.

Fuck was he annoying!

Daenara stopped her horse by the trail to watch the Khalasar pass and rest a moment, absently stroking the egg in the leather bag at her side. When it hatched she could fly again.

(though not on her own wings and not like she once had, it wouldn’t be like before)

Viserys complained sometimes about them carrying the eggs with them like that. “Those eggs are priceless! They’re not toys!”

They paid him no heed. Dragons needed love and heat, not the darkness and silk of that chest. Mormont stopped at her side. “You need to drink child.”

“I’ve drunk plenty thank you,” she replied, urging her horse on. He trotted beside her.

“You should eat.” He held out a piece of dried horse jerky. Daenara took it and stuffed it in one of her saddlebags.

“Thank you for your advice ser.”

Jaemar brought his horse alongside hers. “How are you sister?”

“Oh, how do you think I am? I’m tired, I’m sore, I’ve only eaten horsemeat for a week, and this one won’t leave me alone!” She jerked a thumb at Mormont. “I want to go home.”

It was childish, but she wanted King’s Landing, which they had raised from the ground where there was an army waiting; she wanted Dragonstone, all the way across the sea, where they could be safe and comfortable and warm, and prepare plans for the many battles to come.

Viserys rode his horse up from behind them. “I want to go home too, but they took it from us. So tell me sweet sister, how do we go home?”

Daenara gazed out at the endless grassland and huge sky above them. The world had never felt so unfamiliar. It was so far away from what she occasionally still dreamt of that sometimes she wondered if that had ever been real. Targaryens were said to be either mad or great, and maybe they were just mad ones with these memories that didn’t match up.

“I don’t know.”

“We go home with an army. With Khal Drogo’s army. Which he is currently taking in the wrong direction!”

“He wants a blessing from the sacred city for our marriage.”

Viserys snorted and directed his horse away. Daenara sighed heavily. Mormont gave her a long look and followed. That night she stared at her dragon egg as she knelt over Drogo. He smiled up at her. She smiled back.

Days ticked by and slowly they adjusted to the Dothraki lifestyle. The constant riding got easier, and they took it as preparation for a time when they could once again fly on dragonback. Still the eggs refused to hatch, dormant and silent. Incubation wasn’t working; they were cold stone. They needed something else, something more.

Jaemar often sparred with the men of the Khalasar, using a borrowed arakh or his short sword. The other remained wrapped up safely in his saddlebags. The Dothraki would admire it as deadly, but Viserys would demand it and Mormont could recognise it. Daenara watched the fighting, observing the fighting styles. At last one evening she stood and walked over. “Mind if I join you?”

The Dothraki men laughed and nudged at each other while keeping a respectable distance from the Khal’s wife. Jaemar shrugged. “Me it is then.”

She jumped at him before he could finish the sentence.

Khal Drogo emerged from his tent to find his wife and her brother quite enthusiastically beating back six of his men.

He roared with laughter and approval.

When they sold him a Valyrian princess, he took her for her beauty, but she was more than that, a proud, wild footed mare who ran her own lands or none at all.

Daenara was allowed to fight with the men after that, though the first man to draw blood had a blade across his throat courtesy of Drogo.

“You didn’t need to do that my love,” she told him.

“He hurt you,” he replied, kissing her cut arm.

“It was just a little swipe. I’ve taken worse.”

“From who? Who has done this to my wife?” His hand found his weapon. “I will kill them and bring you their heads!”

Daenara smiled. “Don’t worry my love. They’re already dead men.”

Long dead men.

Viserys’s troubles with Saeherys continued. He had thought he was marrying the meeker sister, the more pliable and obedient one, and giving away the more troublesome one, but as it turned out, Saeherys was just as much trouble when she wanted to be.

And where it came to her marriage to Viserys, she wanted to be.

At last came the day when he decided to push the issue. He was sick of people laughing at him, of the humiliation of not even being able to command his own wife let alone the army he needed to take back his throne. “You are my wife! You need to perform your duties!”

“There’s not exactly much household supervision to do out here dear brother.”

“Be careful of waking the dragon sister. You know what I mean!”

Saeherys folded her arms across her chest. “Spell it out for me.”

“Sex.”

“Not unless the seas turn dry and the sun burns cold.”

There had been rumours of course, whispers about her fidelity, but she only ever loved one man, only ever married one man, and only ever slept with one man.

Viserys grabbed her arms, shook her, and threw them both to the ground, ripping at her clothes. Saeherys screamed and smacked him. He smacked her back. She drew her dagger and drove it hilt deep into his arm.

Viserys screamed.

He screamed so loud the entire khalasar heard.

He screamed so loud many of the khalasar drew their weapons and started running, looking for a rival khalasar attacking.

Saeherys shoved him off and rolled into a crouch. He roared and stumbled to his feet, rushing at her. She darted aside and left a line of scarlet down his chest.

“You little bitch!”

She flashed him her teeth.

“You- You dare- Injure me! Me! I am the dragon! I am your king! I am your husband!”

Saeherys snarled softly. “You are pathetic and I will never let you touch me.”

Saeherys walked out of the tent. Viserys charged after her, borrowed sword in hand. She stepped aside and his swipe swung wide. He screamed in frustration.

“You really should get that arm seen to before you lose too much blood dear brother.”

He roared and lunged for her again. Again she dodged and he missed. By now many of the Dothraki men had gathered round, cheering for the fight and laughing at the crownless King getting a rather thorough thrashing from his pretty little wife.

“You- You are my wife!”

“Consider this marriage annulled.”

Drogo too had shoved his way over, drawn by the long white hair and fearing for his pretty wife. Once he saw it was the other woman, her sister, he waited for the outcome. So too was the ever present Jorah Mormont watching, with a little more concern.

“You can’t do that.”

She snorted. “It’s not like we ever consummated it dear brother.”

He howled and brought the sword down over her head. She skipped aside and kicked him in the side, followed by the knees, knocking him firmly on his bum. The Dothraki roared with approval.

“Mormont!” Viserys screamed. “Teach this little wench her place!”

Jaemar appeared behind the Westerosi and jabbed his blade into his side.

“Interfere and I’ll kill you.”

The look in his eyes said it was the truth. Jorah held his hands up. “I won’t interfere.”

Saeherys glared down at the man people said was her brother. “Two choices now Viserys. You can walk away and get your arm seen to.” She counted it off on her fingers. “Or we can end this the Dothraki way.”

She brought the knife over her throat pointedly. Viserys spluttered.

“What do you want?”

Many of the Dothraki were baying for blood or shouting ‘take ear!’ ‘take finger!’ ‘take hair!’ ‘take manhood!’ at her.

Viserys stumbled to his feet, grabbed his sword, and jabbed a finger at her. “You- You’ll regret this, you hear me? You’ll pay for this!” He staggered over to Jorah and could be heard whining about whether ‘these savages had a maester.’

“There’s a medicine woman,” Jorah assured him, and led him away.

Drogo clasped Saeherys’s arm. “You fight well for a woman sister.”

She smiled up at him. “Thank you, but it’s not exactly hard to beat a man like him.”

Drogo roared and clapped her on the back, sending the young woman staggering forward. Jaemar was there to catch her arm.

She grinned at him lopsidedly.

Part of her wished Viserys had gone for the Dothraki style option.

Now they had to find another way to get rid of him.

That marked the end of Viserys and Saeherys’s short lived marriage. It was a less than traditional parting, and of course, it still existed on paper – which was going to eventually be a problem - but Viserys was very wary of her temper and pushing matters again.

The new Dothraki arakh, a gift from Drogo himself, hung at her waist certainly helped too.

(and the rumours that made it back to king robert said they were angry, vengeful, fighting with each other, tearing themselves apart)


	15. XIV: Fire in their Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire. All rights to the creators.

The sole Dothraki city, Vaes Dothrak, was a dry, dusty place filled with small stone buildings where one was forbidden to bear steel.

According to the Dothraki, this was where Daenara would one day be sent, when Drogo died, to live out her life.

Jaemar pulled her close that evening. “You know I’ll never let that happen.”

She giggled. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Relaxing, doing some sewing, some prophesising…”

Jaemar raised his eyebrows.

Daenara doubled over with laughter.

“I could never imagine you sitting back doing some sewing and prophesising.”

“I can sew! Didn’t I sew those jewels into our clothes?”

“Indeed you did sister.”

All joking aside, all three of the triplets had somewhat come to somewhat enjoy the simple life of the Dothraki and would miss it when they had to leave it.

But they had a destiny, and a land to save, and neither of them could be found here in the dust and grass plains of the Dothraki sea.

So far, nothing they had tried had persuaded their dragons to hatch. Not bodywarmth, nor fire or animal blood, nor animal sacrifice, none had been any good. It was beginning to look like a true blood sacrifice would be their best shot. Only death could pay for life. Saeherys had a good mind as to who they could use.

The bond would be stronger, after all, if they used Targaryen blood.

It was not to be.

They lived in Vaes Dothrak for three long, blisteringly hot weeks. Khal Drogo spent his time speaking with the Khals of other Khalasars.

Three and a half weeks in, Viserys cornered Daenara at the market. “When do I get my army?”

“When the Dothraki omens favour war.”

Which was tedious for them as well as Viserys.

“I piss on Dothraki omens! I am the last hope of a dynasty!”

“Not the last one,” Daenara said, gazing at her true brother – the one she followed into war once already in a lifetime long passed and was prepared to do again – across the busy market.

“I want my army. I want it now.”

Fuck he sounded like a spoiled brat.

If this was what their line had come to, no wonder they were here instead of ruling Westeros.

“I want what I came for. I want the crown he promised me. He bought you. But he never paid for you. Tell him I want what was bargained for or I’m taking you back.”

Daenara couldn’t help it.

She laughed in his face.

“As if you ever had the power to take any of us anywhere! We stayed with you because we wanted to, because you’re our blood and brother, not because you controlled us.”

Viserys drew his sword.

The market ground to a halt.

In Vaes Dothrak, it was strictly forbidden to bare steel. Daenara wasn’t even carrying her knife because of that.

“Put the sword down,” said Mormont from nearby. “They’ll kill us all!”

“They can’t kill us! They can’t shed blood in their sacred city.” He pointed the blade at Daenara’s chest. “But I can.”

All Saeherys could see was the ground coming up beneath her.

It was close, far too close, closing beneath her wings.

All Jaemar could see was the sword.

The tip pressed into Daenara’s chest, hard enough to cut into her leathers.

A little more and he’d draw blood.

A little more-

He remembered the pain, the grief, the anger, fire filling the air.

He moved.

His feet carried him towards Visenya.

His sister.

His wife.

The wife he was not going to lose, not going to push away a second time.

Was not, would not, could not.

“Someone better take him the message. The dragon is not patient.”

The tip dug a little deeper.

Aegon threw himself at Viserys.

They collided with a crack.

The blade tore through the front of Daenara’s jerkin as Viserys swung it round in a narrow arc and slammed it into Jaemar’s head.

They crashed to the ground.

Blood spurted from the wound, staining the dust. The two of them rolled across the dusty street, Jaemar raining blows down on Viserys, who by some miracle on his behalf was still holding onto the sword. Mormont shouted desperately for them to stop as the Dothraki surged around them. Blood stung Jaemar’s eyes, trickled into his eyes. Flailing wildly, Viserys slammed the sword into Jaemar’s jaw, knocking the stockier man aside and taking the upper hand. He brought the sword down on his head. Somewhere in the distance he could hear Saeherys screaming his name.

He would never live down having lost to this bastard.

If he lived much longer.

A moment later Viserys was thrown off him. Jaemar caught a glimpse of his sisters above him, and the world faded to red and black.

Daenara would have killed Viserys there and then, falling on him screeching and shrieking, recalling diving and plummeting through the air with her jaws locked around another, but Qotho and Haggo, two of Drogo’s bloodriders, involved themselves in the fray and got between them. She snarled, rounding on these interlopers who dared interfere, her jerkin flapping open. They hauled Viserys away from her. Saeherys dropped to her knees by Jaemar. “Aegon!”

“What does the Khaleesi wish of this one?” asked Haggo.

Daenara bared her teeth, snarling. She wished her teeth in his throat, his blood and warm flesh in her stomach.

Saeherys reached for her shoulder and she hissed at her too. She might be her blood but she wouldn’t interfere: she’d kill this mate-harming fool and feed his meat to the younglings when they hatched.

“Drogo will decide his fate,” grunted Qotho, yanking on Viserys’s arm. He screamed.

“Unhand me you brute! I am the King!”

“We have no King.”

“You are King of nothing,” Saeherys said. “You’ve never been King and you never will be.”

They’d take the crown back for themselves sooner than let him have it, even if there were more important things than crowns and rulership.

Daenara at last turned back to her brother’s side. A long gash ran from his forehead to the base of his ear, narrowly missing his right eye. His jaw was already beginning to swell.

Daenara pulled off her near useless jerkin and wadded it up to try and stop the bleeding.

“Oh, now the little slut takes her clothes off!” Viserys screamed. Saeherys spun round on all fours, baring her teeth and snarling like a wild animal (like a dragon, Daenara thought blandly, at last). She sprang to her feet and lunged towards her older brother. Jorah Mormont caught her arm. She snarled and slapped him away.

The two bloodriders dragged him away. Cohollo, Drogo’s third bloodrider, stopped at Daenara’s side. “Khaleesi, are you hurt?”

Daenara looked at herself, for the first time seeing her nakedness, and traced a hand over the scarlet line running from the centre of her chest to her armpit, mixing Jaemar’s blood with hers. “No. Find me a cover.”

He took a blanket from a trader’s stall. The trader decided not to argue. Daenara wrapped it around herself. Her gratitude was not false for once. “We need to move my brother inside and have him seen by a medicine woman.”

“Of course Khaleesi.”

Daenara rubbed her bloody fingers together and traced them over Jaemar’s bruising jaw and lips. Blood binds after all, and their blood was power.

Khal Drogo stormed into his hut to find his wife curled up half naked on the bed with her birth-sister and brother. The man’s face was swollen and bruised black, and a long gash across his head was reddened and raw. Smaller scratches and bruises covered his arms. One of the rocks the man from Pentos gifted them was on the bed next to his head. The Beggar King’s once wife, who wore nothing but her undergarments, had her head on his bare chest, her silver hair spilling over her face and his body. One leg was wrapped around one of his and she had another of the rocks between her legs. His own wife had her head laid on his shoulder, one arm wrapped around him and her legs curled around his. She was naked to her waist.

If she had not been his wife and these two her siblings he would have thought them lovers.

“My love!”

She jumped slightly and jerked to look round at him. Carefully, she pulled herself free of her birth-brother. She too had one of the rocks tucked between her and the man, under her breasts. She cradled it in one arm as she stood. Drogo took her head in his hands. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. Drogo touched the cut running across her chest. “He drew your blood!”

“It is a scratch.”

It was one scratch too many.

“And your birth-brother, I heard what he did. When he wakes, he may have the gift of any horse he likes.”

Daenara smiled, stroking the rock in her arms. “And the other?”

“He drew blood in the sacred city. His fate is decided.”


	16. XV: Let Us Begin It Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

Viserys was dragged into the feasting hall in ropes. His silver hair was limp around his face, his eyes wide and more feverish than normal. His silk shirt was torn and his trousers ripped in several places.

“You can’t do this!” he was screaming. “I am the dragon! I am the King!”

He wasn’t and never would be, but he didn’t seem to understand that. That was made him different from her cruel boy.

Viserys was a dragon, but he wasn’t a Dragon where her boy had been.

“Jaemar!” he shouted. “Where is my brother? I demand to see him!”

One of the Dothraki twisted his arm until it cracked. He screamed. “Keep your hands off me! No one touches the dragon!”

Saeherys growled through her teeth. Daenara smiled. She was starting to remember now.

“This is no way to treat a King!”

“You are no King,” growled Drogo.

Daenara had never been prouder of the savage she was married to.

“I want the crown I paid for!”

Drogo narrowed his eyes and turned back to Dothraki as he spoke.

“He says yes,” Saeherys translated.

“You shall have a golden crown that men shall tremble to behold,” Daenara finished.

Viserys laughed. “That was all I wanted. What was promised.”

He might have got it, too, if only he was less of a fool. What want did they have for crowns? They’d had that once. They were here for a different reason now.

Drogo stood and stroked Daenara’s hair, running his hand over where Viserys’s blade had cut into her chest and drawn blood.

(and when they got jaemar back to the hut saeherys had sunk her teeth into her arm deep enough to draw blood so it could be mixed with that of her siblings and smeared on the eggs as an offering but they didn’t speak of that)

Drogo grunted an order for his men and they dragged Viserys towards the fire in the centre of the hall. He screamed. “No! You cannot touch me! I am the Dragon! I am a Dragon!”

He was no dragon, and all here could see that.

“I want my crown!”

“And you shall have it,” Daenara said.

Drogo slung his medallions into the crockpot.

Saeherys looked up at her sister and slid to her feet. Daenara licked her lips. Together, they stalked across the hall to where Viserys was screaming and struggling. Daenara knelt at his side and leant in close. “I am Visenya of the House Targaryen, first of her name, wife of Aegon, Conquerer of Westeros.”

Saeherys knelt at his other side and leant in close. “I am Rhaenys of the House Targaryen, first of her name, wife of Aegon, Conquerer of Westeros.”

Viserys looked frantically between his sisters. “You- You can’t possibly be- You can’t be-You can’t-”

“You should have treated your siblings better.”

“You should have treated your family better.”

“We are used to being treated like Queens after all.”

“But it’s impossible! You’re insane! Mormont! You can’t-”

Drogo lifted the pot from the fire.

“No- No, Daenara, Saeherys, I am your husband! You can’t! Tell them, make them! Please!”

“Our true brother is lying injured because of you. If he dies, you’ll have done what so many men could not.”

If he died, their fury would know no bounds.

“No, please.”

Fuck did he look pathetic.

Daenara took Saeherys’s arm and led her away. The two stood by the Khal’s seat to watch. Drogo carried the pot over to Viserys.

“Look away Khaleesi,” Mormont advised. Daenara shot him an amused look.

“No, Daenara, please! Saeherys! Please!”

Drogo lifted the pot high above his head. “A crown for a King.”

And unlike this one, he spilt no blood in the Sacred City.

Daenara gazed at her new husband and smiled.

(and the whispers that made it back to king robert said jaemar targaryen was badly injured and the would-be king viserys was dead, that the dothraki had poured molten gold over his head while those eerie sisters of his stood and watched with their too-knowing eyes. they said the triplets had turned savages, wild animals, that the smaller girl bit and scratched and growled like a dog, that the bigger one loved her horselord husband and fought beside him like a man, that the brother was a demon with a sword and they were lucky he might be dying or dead already because he could rip through an army single handedly if he wanted to)


	17. XVI: The Unburied Ones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire or A Game of Thrones.

While he slept he flew.

White ground lay beneath him.

Snow and ice, creeping out across the green and brown.

A shadowed form, materialising in front of him.

A great scaled head that bumped his chest.

_Aegon._

Familiar jaws opened.

A black glow lay within.

Jaemar lay in the furs, pale and unmoving. Saeherys was curled up at his side, one arm draped over his chest, while Daenara sat on the bed at his side, one leg over his, her hand intertwined with her sister’s.

“He will come round won’t he?” Saeherys whispered, a repeat of the conversation they’d had many times over the past three days while Jaemar’s fever got worse and worse.

It was no normal sickness, not blood poisoning nor a fever illness. She knew that, and it concerned her somewhat, for they were Targaryens, blood of the dragon, and they rarely sickened.

So what then was this afflicting him?

“Of course he will.”

(because he couldn’t leave them, they couldn’t do this alone, not alone, not just the two of them, they were the three dragons and they needed all of them, two was no good, the dragon had three heads, two was only two thirds)

"Can't you do something?" Saeherys asked. Daenara gave her a stern look.

"You know I can't. He has to wake up on his own."

"What if he doesn't?"

(that was hardly worth thinking about)

"Then we'll have to do this on our own."

On their own, without their brother, their husband, their soulmate, beside them.

"He's strong. He'll wake."

While she slept she fell.

Beneath lay ice and snow.

A mass of frozen ground where nothing could live.

A shape appeared, materialised, beneath her.

One she knew.

One her heart sang for.

_Rhaenys._

Great familiar jaws opened and threw out a stream of golden flame.

Drogo found himself unable to get his wife away from her birth-siblings. She had left the hut only once, to see their older brother executed, and now she stayed firm.

He was sure he could drag her, but this wife he had claimed was a wild mare and her sister even wilder, and both of them feared for their brother.

He married one, but gained all three, for where one went there was always at least one of the others close behind.

Drogo was pretty sure Saeherys had been sitting outside their tent while he fucked Daenara.

"How does he fare?" he asked on his fourth morning visit.

"His fever broke last night. He might start to wake now."

Drogo had seen men die from lesser wounds, but then this man hardly seemed to be a normal man, and nor were his sisters normal women. They looked like them and acted like them most of the time, but they spoke in riddles sometimes, in Tongues that didn't sound like the ones used by the rich men or the traders, snarled like wild animals of the night made human and their eyes held a fire only seen before in hardened warriors.

That was, after all, why he chose her to be his wife.

He could have had any Dothraki woman he wanted, but he wanted her, the moon dragon, who had a warrior's heart and a wild mare's spirit.

While she slept she bathed in fire.

The ground beneath her feet was an expanse of ice.

Nothing but frost and snow as far as the eye could see.

A dark shape appeared in the flames.

Familiar dark eyes gazed at her.

_Visenya._

The great head lowered from above and the sharp jaws opened.

Ser Jorah Mormont could not deny there was something unsettling about the Targaryen triplets.

The house staff back in Pentos had called them the Three Dragons, and he could see why. People said their brother Rhaegar was the last true dragon, but there was something different about these three. Even the Dothraki could see it. They had a fierceness said to have been seen in some of their ancestors, but also a wild savageness, like animals and a harsh ruthlessness, as though they were sick of life already.

What could do that to some so young still?

Their harsh upbringing in Essos and the Free Cities?

Perhaps. It could hardly have been the easiest, constantly on the run and the move, fearing for their lives.

Their brother Viserys?

Perhaps. The man had hardly been the kindly, familial type.

For five days now he had been unable to speak to any of them. The sisters had practically ignored him at Viserys’s coronation come execution, and Daenara refused to let him enter the hut to see their brother.

If he could speak to Saeherys he could probably talk the gentler woman into giving him entrance, but Daenara was the only one to come to the door, and she was violence personified.

Her ancestor Visenya had been said to be the same way.

Perhaps these three had been given a little more of the Targaryen dragon’s blood.

Jorah had heard of children being throwbacks to their ancestors. It was common in the Starks, who had those with wolf’s blood born every other generation. Perhaps these three were the same, throwbacks to the Targaryens of old, Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives.

It could be history repeating itself if they set their eyes on Westeros now that Viserys was dead.

He would have given anything to know what they said to Viserys before his coronation, but the only way to discover that would probably be to get himself executed, and he’d rather keep his head unadorned and on his shoulders.

So Jorah kept his head up, his eyes open, his ears listening, and his letters being sent.

While they slept they stood amongst a sea of ice.

Their hands were linked together, tying each of them to the other two.

They knew not to speak, but all of them knew not to let go.

The ice was a ring of white, with green and brown beyond, but the ring was slowly getting bigger.

The ice was devouring the land.

They knew not to speak, but all of them felt the sense of unnatural wrongness.

Figures appeared from the ice, shambling, decaying, some with bone poking through the flesh and gaping holes where their eyes should be.

Any screams would have been swept away by the wind.

And then there was warmth, familiar and comforting, wrapped around them like a blanket of fire.

Dark shapes appeared behind them, and they couldn’t see their own but they could see the others, see their scaled heads and dark eyes shining in the light.

They felt like home.

_Aegon_

_Visenya_

_Rhaenys_

Fire rained from the ground.

Fire could not burn a dragon.


	18. XVII: Whispers of the Winds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

Aegon woke to a dulled pain in his head, a warmth against his shoulder, and a heavy weight on his chest.

Had he been injured in some fight?

He forced his eyes to open.

Light met him and he found himself staring up at a thatched ceiling, straw and fabric like the Dothraki used.

The Dothraki..?

The weight he felt, he realised, was Visenya, her head on his stomach and her body curled tight between his legs. Rhaenys was curled into his side, tucked under his arm with her legs wrapped around her sister-wife.

As things should be.

The warmth on his shoulder was the black dragon egg, its scaled surface nestled between his head and his shoulder. Visenya had the green and bronze one cradled against her stomach, one arm wrapped around it, while Rhaenys had the cream and gold one nestled between her and Visenya.

Visenya awoke freezing, like the cold was wrapped around her bones and there was ice in her veins. A lump of warmth was pressed against her stomach.

Had she flown off course?

She forced herself to open her eyes, though it felt like her lids were frozen closed.

She was laid in a bed of furs, one of Aegon's hands on her head and one of hers liked with Rhaenys's. The warmth, she found, was her dragon egg, clutched against her stomach. She stroked it with one hand.

The ice continued to flow through her blood.

Rhaenys woke as she hit the ground.

She wasn't falling.

She wasn't-

She made her eyes open and blinked in the dim light entering the hut through the gaps in the wall.

(the whispers that made it back to westeros, back to the false king robert said that their brother's death had changed the triplets, that they were harder, harsher, tired of the world; they said they were born leaders even if they preferred their own company, that the boy commanded those around him like a practised general, that the bigger girl was a sorceress who enchanted the savage dothraki men, that the smaller one was an animal who could tear a man's throat out with her teeth; and some of them said they were aegon the conqueror and his sister-wives all over again, that they had their eyes set on westeros, and the whispers and rumours went on and on and on until king robert proclaimed that if they were aegon the conqueror and his sister-wives all over again then they should be in the same state)

Daenara and Saeherys took their first bath in seven days after Jaemar woke, washed the filth and grime and fist from their skin, and stared at their reflection in the mirrors their handmaidens brought them.

Neither of them spoke but they both knew the other saw the same thing, felt the same way.

They couldn't recognise themselves in the mirror.

They helped Aegon to bathe afterward, cleansing the blood and dust from his skin with cool water.

He would bear the scar for the rest of his life.

Visenya kissed his cheek. "The eggs are waking."


	19. XVIII: Our Chains Are Forged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

The Targaryen triplets worked their way down the street as the merchants and traders of Vaes Dothrak called out their wares. The crowd parted around them. No one wanted to meet their amethyst eyes.

It felt like being a true Targaryen - being a dragonrider, a Royal, being themselves - again.

Jorah Mormont stayed close to their sides pretending to be friendly. Aegon had no belief in his proclamation of fealty to the true King. All he wanted was a way back to the Seven Kingdoms.

Not that he could blame him.

Aegon would give an arm and a leg for he and his sisters to be safe back home on Dragonstone in the world and lands they knew.

Instead they were here, their own descendants, stuck and lost in an unfamiliar land that felt more and more like home with every day that passed.

Except-

When they closed their eyes the ice came, spreading out across the land, bringing with it a cold that lasted past the moment when they opened their eyes and images of decaying monsters made from the dead.

It was their duty not to abandon the Seven Kingdoms to that fate.

They were the defenders of the realm after all.

"How are things going with Drogo?" Aegon asked, referring to Daenara's ongoing attempts to talk her husband into taking the khalasar across the sea to Westeros.

She sighed. "It's not just that he won't listen, he doesn't want to listen."

"The Dothraki do things in their own time and floor their own reasons," said Mormont. "Give it time Khaleesi."

They didn't have time.

"Your ancestor, Aegon the conqueror, didn't take the Seven Kingdoms because it was his right. He took them because he wanted them."

No, he didn't. Jaemar bit his tongue to stop himself saying anything.

"And because we had dragons," Rhaenys said before thinking. Her siblings looked at her.

"I believe in what I can see with my eyes. Who knows what really happened? It was three hundred years ago."

For them it felt more like sixteen.

Or a lifetime.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and see if the merchant Captain has any letters for me."

"Ate you expecting something Mormont?" Daenara asked sharply. "We're in the middle of the Dothraki grass area, who is there that knows where you'll be?"

"I have contacts in Westeros. Excuse me Khaleesi."

He turned and walked away into the crowd. The three watched him go.

“I’ll catch up,” Aegon murmured, stepping away from his sisters and following Mormont into the crowd.

Mormont was summoned by a young boy, who passed him a roll of paper and greetings from someone called ‘the Spider.’ “A royal pardon,” he said. “You can go home now.”

Aegon narrowed his eyes and slipped away to find his sisters again before something happened or he was noticed. There were very few people with Targaryen silver-gold hair out here.

Daenara and Saeherys were being accosted by a wine merchant, who was trying to persuade them to take a taste of wine. Unfortunately, the first words out of his mouth were “I have a sweet red from Dorne.”

Saeherys paled more than her already pale skin. Daenara scowled and slapped the wine from his hand. “I hate the Dornish!”

“M-m-my apologies. I have a dry red from the arbor, nector of the gods. I will give you a cask.”

“No thank you,” snapped Daenara.

“Truly, I insist.” He fetched a cask of wine. Daenara’s scowl darkened.

“I said no.”

“The Khaleesi has spoken,” said Doreah.

“It is so,” agreed Irri.

The wine merchant glanced between them. Aegon narrowed his eyes and came up behind his sisters. _A royal pardon._ But why? What had Jorah Mormont done to earn that?

“I’ll try it,” he said. “Open it.”

The merchant set the cask down and opened it, pouring a cup. Aegon took it and sniffed it. Daenara knew more about poisons and potions, but this smelled… off, somehow.

“Sweet, isn’t it? Can you smell the fruit? Taste it my Lord. Tell me that is not the finest wine you have ever tasted.”

He swirled it in the cup. “You first.”

“I am afraid I am not worthy of the vintage. Besides, it is a poor wine merchant who would drink up his own wares.”

“Drink,” Aegon repeated, holding out the cup. The merchant took it and lifted it to his mouth. He hesitated a moment, a moment too long, and then tossed the cup aside and bolted. Aegon followed. A moment later the merchant was yanked to the ground by the whip of one of Drogo’s bloodriders. Daenara raised an eyebrow.

“Poison?”

“That would be my guess.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he replied as his gaze met Mormont’s through the crowd.

He knew.

The boy knew.

Not just suspected, the look in his ever-knowing, ever-too-old eyes said he _knew._

He knew what he had done, what he had said, he knew.

_Fuck._

If he spoke up he was dead for threatening the life of the Khaleesi, if he didn’t his fate and life was in the hands of the Targaryen triplets and whatever it was their too intelligent for their ages eyes wanted.

_Fuck._

Jaemar broke the eye contact and wrapped one arm around Daenara, using the other to take Saeherys’s hand. He led them away into the crowd without looking back.

Jorah knew full well what happened to the people that threatened and challenged them before. The would-be assassin being dragged off was only one example of that. 

He just had to hope they decided he was more useful alive than dead.

The wine merchant was taken to the Great Hall and tied to one of the pillars. Rhaenys studied him with some mild interest. “What will they do to him?”

“Can I have him?” Visenya asked. She could think of a dozen small things and one big thing they could use him for.

Of course, if Viserys hadn’t gone and gotten himself killed they would have had another option, but he had to go and be an idiot.

Mormont appeared from behind whatever pillar he had been hiding. Aegon gazed at him with unforgiving eyes. If he and his royal pardon had had anything to do with this, he would kill him personally.

“The Dothraki will leash him behind the horses when the Khalasar rides and force him to run behind the horses for as long as he can.”

Rhaenys tipped her head. “And when he falls?”

“I saw a man last nine miles once.”

Was that better, she wondered, or worse, than falling from the sky, being devoured by a dragon, or being burnt or cooked alive? She giggled softly. “I wonder how he knew where we were in the vast Dothraki sea.”

It was a pointed question. Aegon had told his sisters what he had seen.

“He will never leave you alone. If you sailed all the way to the Basilisk Isles his spies would tell him.”

Oh, they were sure they would.

“Indeed,” Visenya said.

“He will never abandon the hunt.”

“And what of his dogs?” Aegon asked.

Mormont frowned.

“Dogs?”

Rhaenys bared her teeth and growled softly. “Dogs. Arf arf.”

“I think you’re confused sweet sister. I’m pretty sure the good King Robert’s sending out bears these days,” Visenya said dryly.

Drogo interrupted them at that moment and swept into the hall behind his men. Visenya smiled. He stopped to study the wine merchant, holding a burning torch much too close to his head for the liking of most people, before striding over to Visenya. “My love. Are you hurt?”

She laid a hand on his and gazed into his dark eyes. He could never truly be her husband, her love, this man, this savage, but… he did love her. And she felt something more than nothing towards him. She shook her head. He pulled her close and kissed her.

She didn’t push him away.

He turned to Aegon. “I heard what you did. To you I pledge a fine arakh.” He clasped his shoulder. “I make this gift to you.” He turned back to Visenya. “And to my wife, the light of my life, I will also pledge a gift.” He took a step back towards the fire. “I will give you the Kingdom of the Cold.” He turned towards the flames. “I will give you the heads of your enemies! I, Drogo, will do this.”

Visenya smiled. Behind her, Rhaenys too was smiling while Aegon kept a straight, stern expression.

“I will take my Khalasar west to where the world ends and ride wooden horses across the black salt water as no Khal has done before.”

He paused to glare at the wine merchant. “I will kill the men in ice and iron suits and tear down their stone houses!”

Well, it was a start. But they would have to stop him destroying the houses, they would need those to keep warm when the ice monsters came.

“I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak! This, I vow. I, Drogo, son of Bharbo, I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness!”

Around him, the Dothraki roared their approval. Visenya gazed at him through the flames of the fire and smiled.

They rode out in the morning. The wine merchant was leashed to her saddle.


	20. XIX: The Light of Dusk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire or Game of Thrones.

Lhazar, land of the lamb men, was a dull land where no horses could thrive. They preferred sheep, of all animals. They made for good slaves though, and while Drogo had all the men he needed, he needed wooden horses to get them across the Black Poison Water to his wife’s birthplace and the lands of cold she desired to conquer.

Against his demands and wishes, his wife and her sister insisted on riding out with the men to take part in the raid. They were both capable warriors – perhaps he ought to see if any of the Dothraki girls could fight like the men like they could to defend the babes and younglings in a raid – but they were still women and didn’t belong on a battlefield.

“What use is a wife who cannot defend her husband?” Daenara asked, running a hand down his chest. “My place is with you my love.”

There was no telling her otherwise.

They made many slaves in the first and second villages they raided. His wife fought valiantly alongside the men. She was a wonderful warrior, a streak of silver alongside her siblings that trampled any man to challenge her underfoot.

Lhazareen and Dothraki alike.

Mago stormed up to his tent, roaring mad. “Control your fucking Westerosi whore! She is a woman, she should not ride with the men!”

“It is her way.”

Whether he liked it or not.

“You take orders from this foreign slut!”

“Her place is at my side.”

“Her place is in the furs! If you cannot control her, maybe they should not be yours!”

Daenara chose that moment to enter, her birth-siblings at her side.

“My love. Mago protests your actions. Tell me the truth of this.”

“Mago speaks the truth. He got in my way and refused to move, demanding I return to the women and babes. When I refused, he tried to make me.”

“Is this true? You dare make demands of my wife, of your Khaleesi?”

“She should be with the women!”

Daenara flashed him her teeth. “I am Khaleesi. I command you.”

Drogo laughed. “See how fierce she is? She has a warrior’s heart. I will hear no more.”

Mago spat and drew his arakh. “A Khal who takes orders from a foreign whore is no Khal.”

Qotho stepped forward to block him. Drogo ordered him to step aside and let Mago face him. He gave him one chance to walk away even after he threatened his wife, but now- “I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honour.”

Mago pressed his blade to his chest. Drogo leant forward into it. The blade drew blood.

“The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs.”

Mago roared, reared back, and swung out with his arakh. Drogo ducked and stepped aside, drawing his daggers. “The rain will fall on your rotting skin!” He dropped the knives. He had no need of those to kill a man like Mago. “Until nothing is left of you but bones.” He charged at him and let Mago swing, dodging every attempted blow.

“First you have to kill me!”

Drogo caught his weapon arm. “I already have.” He wrenched the blade back across his throat and ripped out his tongue. This was what he did to men like Mago, all talk and no usefulness. The corpse fell to the ground. He tossed the tongue aside and returned to his seat. Daenara hurried to his side.

“My love you are injured.”

“A scratch.”

“Come. Let me tend to you.”

Women were such tender, fussing creatures, even when they were violent warriors like his wife and Khaleesi.

When she slept Visenya saw lions of gold trampling a field of golden wheat under their paws.

When he slept, Aegon saw a falcon made of ice with wings big enough to overshadow a mountain throwing a silver fish into a frozen river.

When she slept, Rhaenys saw a huge black wolf in a cage as lions made of gold with blood red eyes prowled around it while a tiny red cub mewled from a gilded cage with an open door behind them and she wanted to shout to it, _you can’t save him, he’s already dead, run now, run far, run fast_ , but her words were silent and swept away by the wind.

Drogo began to sicken as they rode. His temperature rose.

“You need to stop and rest so I can tend you my love,” Visenya told him.

“I will ride,” he replied. She glanced across at Aegon. Her husband was getting worse and worse, and they all knew it. But the Dothraki believed stubbornly that a Khal who could not ride could be no Khal, and so Drogo insisted on riding and pretending nothing was wrong.

Until the day he fell from his horse.

Visenya slid from her own mount and hurried to his side. Aegon and Rhaenys followed suit, flanking her as Mormont approached.

“My horse,” Drogo mumbled, “I must ride.”

“He has fallen from his horse,” Qotho announced. “A Khal who cannot ride is no Khal.”

Visenya knew death when she saw it, but she couldn’t show weakness in front of this Bloodrider. “We’ve ridden far enough today. We’ll camp here.”

“This is no place to camp. And a woman does not give us orders. Not even a Khaleesi.”

Visenya stood and stalked over to stand in front of Qotho’s horse, her eyes hard and challenging. “I say we camp here for tonight and rest. Do you challenge me?”

“A Khaleesi is no Khal.”

Visenya drew her sword. “Do you want to test that?”

“You threaten me Khaleesi?”

She flashed him her teeth. “Yes.”

Mormont attempted to put an arm between her and the horse. “There’s no need for this.”

“This- foreign whore threatens me!”

“This foreign whore is your Khaleesi!” Visenya snapped.

“Khaleesi, I implore you to stop this madness.”

Visenya snarled at Mormont and shoved him away, hard. “We camp here for tonight.”

Qotho stared at her long and hard. “As you wish Khaleesi.”


	21. XX: Born of the Flames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own A Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire

They established the camp there, and it was full of whispers and worry about the health of the Khal. His bloodriders carried Drogo into his tent. Visenya, Aegon and Rhaenys lit candles and torches around the tent and laid their eggs in the centre of a ring of three. Visenya sat at Drogo’s side, as was expected of her. “This is my fault. If he hadn’t got in that fight with Mago…”

Rhaenys lounged on the floor, twisting a strand of her hair between her fingers. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually fallen in love with him sweet-sister.”

“I respect him,” Visenya replied sharply.

Drogo continued to mumble feverishly.

As was expected to happen sooner or later, Jorah Mormont ducked into the tent. He had been quiet as a mouse since they left Vaes Dothrak. Rhaenys found it entertaining to drop hints about dogs and bears then flash her teeth and watch him squirm.

Visenya agreed that it was rather amusing.

“How is he?”

“The wound has festered. He will die tonight.”

“Then we must go, quickly. I’ve heard there’s a good port in Asshai.”

“We’re not leaving.”

“He’s already gone, you said it yourself. And there will be fighting when he dies. It would be best if we weren’t here by the time that starts.”

“My sister said we aren’t leaving,” Aegon said smoothly.

“It is madness to stay. You could sell your dragon eggs, return to the Free Cities and live as wealthy citizens for the rest of your days.”

“A dragon egg is not a chunk of gold to be bought and sold,” Aegon replied, slinking to his feet and stepping in front of the entrance to the tent.

“Those eggs are fossilised; they will never hatch. Besides, they were given to your sister, it is not your decision to make.”

“I say my brother is right,” Visenya said. “And who’s to say the Free Cities will be safe for us? There has already been one attempt on our lives.”

“I wonder how that came around?” Rhaenys remarked, her eyes glinting like amethyst in the firelight.

“King Robert will always hunt you while you pose a threat; if you stop-”

Aegon drew his arakh. “You know Ser, you’re not sounding all that much like an ally right now.”

“I swore to serve you as the rightful King.”

“Then why don’t we start by talking about that assassination attempt and how you earned that Royal Pardon of yours?”

“Those two things were unrelated.”

Rhaenys stretched and reached for her own arakh, toying with it between her hands. “Funny that.”

“So what did you do to earn that pardon?”

“I was… providing the Spider with misleading information on you three. I was helping you.”

Visenya laid her hand on the torch nearest her. “I don’t think it helped.”

Rhaenys licked her blade. “No.”

Ser Jorah drew his sword.

Visenya shoved the torch over.

The flames roared up on the dry ground. Mormont yelled and reached for her. “What have you done?”

Visenya gazed at him through the flickering fire. “I am Visenya of the House Targaryen, first of her name, wife of Aegon, Conqueror of Westeros.”

Mormont opened and closed his mouth. “Wha- what? But you-”

Rhaenys spun her blade in her hand. “I am Rhaenys of the House Targaryen, first of her name, wife of Aegon, Conqueror of Westeros.”

“You’re as mad as Aerys! We need to get out!” He turned to the exit, only for Aegon to block his path. The fire was growing quickly in the dry, contained space, already eating up the fabric of the tent.

“I am Aegon of the House Targaryen, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. I say we stay right here.”

Rhaenys giggled. The flames roared higher and higher.

“You’ll kill us all to prove a point!”

“No. Just you.”

The fire danced around them, kissing their skin, but fire could not harm a dragon, especially not ones as old as they. Mormont tried to back out of their path, but the tent was contained and at last they caught him, wrapping him in red and gold. He screamed, the sound filling the air and echoing in their ears.

They had seen many other men burn in their armour. It was not pleasant.

Visenya reached for Rhaenys, linking their fingers as the fire grew and grew. Aegon reached for Visenya, wrapping his fingers around her wrist. Rhaenys completed the circle as she reached for Aegon, taking his hand.

In the flames Visenya saw a great horse bigger than Balerion with flames for a mane and tail and fire spurting from its nostrils. It stopped where Drogo lay on his deathbed and a great shadowy figure sprang upon its back, leaning down to run fiery fingers through her silver hair. She closed her eyes and in the distance a great _crack_ like thunder rang out.

In the flames Aegon saw the dead. He saw Viserys hand in hand with a woman only a little older than them, holding in their arms five young babes, and behind them a taller, more muscular man with flowing silver locks and two children at his feet. He saw strangers long dead with the skin and muscle rotting from them. He saw his sons whose names still escaped him, and the older one’s children scattered in the fire reaching arms out towards him as a _crack_ like stone melting sounded somewhere far away.

In the flames Rhaenys saw dragons. She saw great fiery beasts with vengeance in their eyes, huge creatures bigger than mountains, jaws large enough to snap up a horse whole. She saw them adding to the flames, a tornado of fire that swirled round and round them, and a familiar shape of golden scales that she would have reached for if not for Aegon and Visenya holding her hands. In the middle of it all a great _crack_ like the body of some great beast hitting the ground rang out.


	22. XXI: Amongst the Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire or A Game of Thrones.

Dawn was breaking by the time the flames started to die down. Fights were still raging amongst many of the Dothraki men to see who would become the next Khal or Khals and who would follow them as their Khalasar. High in the sky above them, a red streak stained the dawn.

It was Qotho who first set foot into the ash. The fire had burnt hot and long for all there was no oil to aid it. Drogo, who had been _blood of his blood_ , had been burnt along with everything else.

Except-

Not everything else.

Three figures were huddled together in what must have been nearly the epicentre of the blaze, naked as the day they were born, coated in ash and stone, their silver-gold hair all charred and stained to black. Jaemar was in the centre, the Khaleesi and her sister huddled against him, his arms around them and their hands linked, as though he had been trying to protect them.

Together to the end.

Except-

Except-

Except-

As Qotho approached something moved, creeping across the Khaleesi’s shoulder. Something else stirred at her sister’s breast.

That should be impossible; everything should have burnt in the flames!

Except-

Except-

Except-

Not everything had.

Ash and soot and shards of shining stone fell from Jaemar’s skin as he lifted his head and met Qotho’s gaze.

They had not burnt.

Why had they not burnt?

Something moved at the younger man’s crotch. Only now could Qotho see what it was. A small winged lizard. Or, perhaps more appropriately, as all the stories his mother had told called them-

“Blood of my blood,” he whispered, dropping to one knee.

Around them, the dividing Khalasar came to a halt.

Behind him, Cohollo and Haggo bowed down.

Jaemar stood as the Khaleesi and her sister opened their eyes, their lids blackened from flames and soot, cradling the beast against him with one hand. The other he held out to the Khaleesi, who took it and in turn helped her sister to her feet.

Around them, amongst the ash, the Khalasar bowed to the ground.

The black dragon clinging to the new Khal screamed his defiance to the world, the sound filling the dawn. Those held by the Khaleesi and her sister added their voices to his, shrill, furious, demanding.

The night air was filled by the cry of dragons.


End file.
